please ID this

[Gfoot2000]

Please ID this critter for me. my tank has been running since late August and this is the first time I'm seeing this guy. i believe its some type of baby fish.

It wiggles to swim around like a baby fish does, but it's body look like a bristle worm, i dunno if it has bristles or if its body around the red part is clear or not. it has black eyes. and the biggest one is about 3-4mm. when i turned on my room light i saw about 30 of them swimming in the open and also being blown around by the powerhead. It definitely swims, i don't see it crawling.

haven't added any rocks since i first set up the tank

let me know if you guys need more info

i have 2 clownfish, clown tang, yellow tank, fire fish, blue green chromis, 2 troches, 2 turbo, 3 stomella, 6 hermit crabs, 1 halloween crab

http://www.3reef.com/forums/members/gfoot2000-albums-weird-thing-picture9604-what.jpg

[Bluemon]

bristleworm

[tetra-tag]

Possibly an Epitoke, which is the motile reproductive stage of polychaete worms that breaks off from the rest of the worm in order to join the swarm for the purpose of exchanging gametes.

[Gfoot2000]

darn, i haven't seen a single brittle worm in this tank and now they came out of no where

[Mike_Noren]

I agree with tetra-tag, it's the epitoke of some polychaete living in your rockwork. All tanks with live rock have polychaetes, most are neutral or benign.

[Jocko]

Yeah I went through a phase where I had lots of those guys swimming around at night. It's just one of the many population spikes you'll get of various creatures as your tank matures: pods, bristleworms, flatworms, tube worms, etc. Eventually each of them settles into an equilibrium, but during a spike it can look like an infestation.