bristleworm ID?

[tebstan]

To Third Coast Tropical, I know you didn’t mean to offend. And like I said, don’t take my response so personally. My feelings about requesting help on posts are not solely because of your wording, I know you were saying it tongue-in-cheek. But you took my question to a level I didn’t intend.

I started out asking about a reference to help me ID a worm I thought was pretty. I can totally understand that some people would want to yank it out of the tank and stick it under a microscope. But that totally was not my question. It clearly wasn’t a typical fireworm, I’ve seen plenty of those. I wanted to see if there was a cohesive site that discussed the other common varieties, similar to the Algae Page or the Hitchhiker ID link.

I rarely post my questions. I research first, ask at a LFS next, then ask my personal friends in the hobby, and finally search archives of MAAST and other bulletin boards before posting a question. And I don’t expect any of those resources to give me consistent or definite answers; that is the nature of opinions.
I’ve posted questions before and received little response, possibly because the post was buried under new posts. (Which is how I notice so many posts have to do with selling things, and questions get buried.) Sometimes when I post questions, I get no actual answers or assistance, but am thrown a bone of random information of little use to my question. I’ve become less inclined to ask for help because I don’t usually get much.

[lwharper]

just remember that you can garner knowledge from anything that gets posted on MAASt. It may not be the knowledge you are looking for but if you will just pay attention you will find and answer to something that you were looking for. No knocking just understand that we are all here for the very same reason...to learn more about our hobbies; the fun things that we like to do. Take the advice of any person that is willing to give it up. You may not use it now and you may not use it later but before it is all said and done it will come in handy. Do not dismiss any advice...you never know when it will save your favorite fish.
And about the bristle worm...i believe that you see the different hues in color because the worm was at one time broken and/or partially eaten and they enjoy the gift of regeneration. The new growth tends to maintain the color of a young pink bristleworm. Don't know if it helps any but there you go.

[Europhyllia]

Sometimes when I post questions, I get no actual answers or assistance, but am thrown a bone of random information of little use to my question. I’ve become less inclined to ask for help because I don’t usually get much.

We throw you what we got!
I know I post a lot and much of the time it's not the most scientific or enlightened post but I figure I'll give you what I got and you can take it or leave it but at least you don't hear the crickets chirping in response to your post (I hate when that happens. I prefer a well meaning useless response to no response at all. Must be a girl thing)
I was going to post the link to wetwebmedia's Polychae ID pages but figured you'd already looked there anyway.

[tebstan]

And about the bristle worm...i believe that you see the different hues in color because the worm was at one time broken and/or partially eaten and they enjoy the gift of regeneration. The new growth tends to maintain the color of a young pink bristleworm. Don't know if it helps any but there you go.

Huh. He had no pink that I could see. Fireworm and many bristleworm pics show a predominant amount of pink/orange. Figured that was just a species/variety trait, not an age/regeneration thing. When they're in, uh, breeding mode, they look like a totally different critter. If this fella didn't have any pink, could it mean he was old, or just so long that I didn't see the pink end? (Eew.) He wasn't small, diameter-wise.

EuroMom, you do answer many of my questions, thanks. And yes, I had checked WWM - it led me on an hours long worm reading frenzy. Still didn't see anything that quite matched this guy, but it kept me interested enough to keep reading and led me to check out the Museum of Natural History's Research and Curation site. Which, I'm sure, didn't give me an exact answer, but it gave me a way to learn more about what to watch for, without killing the little (big) guy.

He was *blue.* I had the actinics on when I spotted him, put a red light on him, and then a white light. Under those lights he looked blue, purple, and then gun metal blue under the white light.