HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Went to check on the crabs yesterday and saw large worms in the dish!!!! Right now i see 2/3 hermit crabs up over the past few days so I'm pretty worried about what they are. The larger worm is probably 1mm thick and the smaller one is probably half of that. The length is probably 5 or so cm long. Much larger than any debris worm I've ever seen. Photo links:





The large brown thing is just a stick, not a worm. The bigger worm is pinkish, and the smaller one is more blue/gray. I will edit the pictures circling them if it's too hard to find them. Any identifications would be nice. Thank you...

Could you have added anything that may have had earthworms hiding in it?

Not that i can think of! All decor had been washed in very hot water, all food is either human grade fresh or freeze dried, but the sand was play sand from home depot, and the soil is eco earth. I guess there could have been eggs in the play sand? That's all i can think of. The tank is over a year old now, with no substrate changes.

The images are not visible here. "Worms"... many people mistake e.g. beetle larvae, millipedes and centipedes for "worms".
Worms in the water dish could be even a parasite of insects, like nematodes which could get pretty big. Some nematodes force their host to go into the water to set the nematode free, and the nematode even emerges when an already-dead infected insects falls into water. Have you ever tried to feed insects, dead or alive, or were there any chances that an insect infested with nematodes fell into your tank? Typical hosts are large grasshoppers, mantis and beetles.

An image would be really helpful.
If you have added some kind of wood, even months ago, this also could be the source - if the "worms" are beetle larva or millipedes.

Im happy the image doesn't work lol

None of the images show up for me.

Mine continued to leave worms that looked like either nematodes or Arundinula washingtoniensis. Long, stringy and seemed like they had many small cells for body segments. They came in on some blueberry crabs and it completely wiped my colony within 2 years and I had them as well. Since I've lost my colony I no longer have them myself either. Not the kind of thing you want to hear, but it's better to know the truth.

Wow this is a very old post of mine. Sorry if this is against the rules or anything, but I wanted to try to add the photos again. This is a direct link to the photos.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/158378478 ... ed-public/

The person mentioned Arundinula washingtoniensis, and honestly they look pretty similar when i looked them up. Opinions?

Those look more like earth worms like wode said.

Mine looked like this:

https://imgur.com/a/3TCmBus