Tigertail Cucumber

[Juiblex]

Hello, first post, first foray into a reef tank. I've been cycling with some live rock from the LFS, and enjoying the wonderful life that has been growing on this stuff... never thought I'd have my nose stuck to the glass without any fish in it. :)

Being a lurker on the board, I saw a worm like thing with spines hiding in a little hidey hole in the rock I bought, pink with white spines. At first I thought it was a bristle worm, but when I saw it move I noticed it was round not flat, and had spines all over, not like centapede legs.

I checked out melevsreef, and sure enough my critter looks like what is labeled as a tigertail cucumber.
http://melevsreef.com/id/kritter1.html

My question is... my cuke is only roughly the size of a toothpick (in length and girth).... is this a right size for these things? I always imagined cucumbers to be very large. Likewise, I have a crushed coral substrate, what kind of special care should I give these guys, as I understand they eat sand.

[Paintbug]

http://www.reefcentral.com/images/welcome.gif
have you seen both ends of the worm? a toothpick size would be tiny for a cuke.

[Pandora]

I don't think it sounds likely to be a cuke either. They are not common hitchhikers (if they were, you'd hit the jackpot :)). There are all sorts of worms, on the other hand, that are, and not all have the "centipede leg" look. Also, the size like Paintbug said. Any chance you can sneak a photo of him?

[Juiblex]

He's so tiny, I am not sure if I can get a good shot with my camera.

I spend my income on fish, not cameras (at the moment) :)

I assume the image of the tigertail on the link I sent was not mislabeled? It looks JUST like that, especially the coloring and the 'spines'.

It's round, not flat, and pinkish like an earthworm, with white spines that shoot out in various directions.

Honestly, I have only seen the first inch of him (I assume his head). He spends most of his time curled up in a crevise in the rock.... He leaves every once in awhile (towards night, usually... but the lights are not out). I don't know where he goes, but have noticed him hanging around in the general location of his home. :)

[Pandora]

No, it's not mislabeled, Melev's quite good about that stuff. :) I've had a tiger tail, and it would not spend a lot of time in just one area, it crawled around all over the tank, all over the sand; one day you'd spot it on one end, the next another. Also, it just sounds too tiny to be one. And it's rare to get a baby cucumber, they are planktonic lifeforms and don't look quite like that when they are that size, that is just their adult shape. They also reproduce by vegetative division (just split half and half), but this wouldn't cause their diameter to be thin, they would then appear as two fat halves. The behavior and appearance still sound to me like some sort of bristleworm (yes, some do appear pretty similar to the pic shown, but take a more careful look at the "spines", they are thinner and not the same).