# Spionid worm control!



## Brackish (Nov 30, 2010)

For those of you who don't like the appearance of spionid worms whether or not they are good for an aquarium, I posted this in my other thread about pistol shrimp:

_"I have read multiple threads about people struggling with an over abundance of spionid worms. The little two tentacle guys that make tubes out of the sand. Spionid worms and pistol shrimp hate each other. I have observed on multiple occasions my goby and shrimp walking around the tank simply so the shrimp can rip their tubes out of the sand. The entire tube, every time. I can only assume he would like them in good condition to mount on the wall of his burrow in a total display of conquest."_

Now I know this is a huge aesthetic problem for some of us. So I decided to move the piece of rock that my shrimp and goby make their burrow under. Just to gauge the quality of advice I was giving for such a problem.

Lo and behold... The entrance to their burrow was covered with dead tubes. No spionids. The shrimp appear to take the tubes and use them in a structural fashion.

If you have lots of spionid tubes coming out of your sand that you don't like, I hope I've provided some proof that a pistol shrimp might help. I hope this helps some of you!

-Brackish


----------



## wtac (Mar 17, 2006)

That's "mother nature" for you...there is always a use for _something_ .

A jawfish (black cap) in one of my client's system always stacks snails in the opening of it's burrow to keep it from collapsing...if the jawfish chose a live one, it's a slow demise for the snail as when it tries to crawl away, the jawfish just brings it back...LOL!


----------



## J_T (Mar 25, 2011)

My diamond goby had problems when he dug his borrow. The rock is on a stilted table (build thread around here somewhere, or on AP to see what I am talking about) and the sand fell in. Not unlike digging a hole in the sand at the beach. It didn't take him long to make use of the tubes. He dug them up, and dropped them around the rock. Then dug out the burrow again. This time he brought the sand around to cover the tubes.



Now I have to manually remove them. His problems are solved.


Sent from my HTC 8 using Tapatalk


----------



## Bayinaung (Feb 24, 2012)

damn smart goby!


----------



## Brackish (Nov 30, 2010)

Interesting. The shrimp does nearly the same thing if there's a hole that's too big. He will lay down the tubes and then cover them in sand. One of his oldest burrows he lined the entrance opening with shells from the sand. I can't believe the kinds of things I see him doing sometimes.


----------

