Spaghetti Worms out of sand in marine tank?

Every day finds a new mystery in the 55 gallon native marine tank. Today I found the spaghetti worms up on top of the sand and worried that something may have tainted under the sand and the worms were coming out for refuge. Then I discovered the mangrove snapper had dug them out of the nest she is building under the rocks and spit them out on top the sand around the tank. Now to see if they'll dig their way back down . . .
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Very cool!
I love stuff like that.
How long have you had your mangrove snapper?
I caught some on hook and line and thought they'd be cool captives. Some of the ones I caught were about a foot long. With those big mouths and big fangs I figured they'd be a one fish per tank kind of species.

We've had the snapper about 6 months. She terrorizes all the other fish so they have to stay at the top. She can eat a grass shrimp faster than you've ever seen. As soon as we can get some more fish this season, I'm afraid she has to go. I spoke with a friend who had one but couldn't net it to get rid of it & ended up catching it on a hook & line IN THE TANK!! (It didn't actually get hooked, but he yanked it out when it bit the bait.)

By the way -- the worms did go back into the sand. One went right away so I thought the other one was dead, but when I took it out it squirmed all around so I put it back . . .

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a quick photo: down in front orange left = worm on top of sand; orange swirls right = worm in sand with spaghetti tentacles protruding. Snapper "on patrol" behind fan coral. The black pointy mass at far left behind a round shell & left of yellow hair-type plant = the cucumber regenerating. (I have to get rid of the red hair algae!)

I'm not surprised to hear the snapper is a bit aggressive. They sure are quick to strip a piece of bait off a hook or to grab a lure much bigger than you'd expect for a fish that size.
That's a nice looking tank. Looks like you have some pieces of jetty granite in there. Closest thing us cool water folks get to "live rock". Of course if you keep butterflies, the barnacles and tube worms and bryzoans disappear pretty quick.