looking for a tropical worm as a pet

Question
QUESTION: Ten years ago I had a freshwater tank with underwater worms, NOT rope fish. My worms were a light lavender in color though I had seen them in very dark purple, almost black, about 14inches in length and a cm in circumference.
I believe the species was from South America and river dwellers. They are scaleless and are not segmented, eyes have an obvious membrane covering and they have a small mouth with very small teeth that feel like a fine sandpaper. These worms are quite shy and you are able to hand feed them, mine used to hide under the gravel when the tank light was on.
I am once again starting an aquarium as a hobby an would very much like to aquire this unique specimen for my tank, but unfortunately the family owned pet store went out of business, and I am unable to recall the exact name of the worm, it sounded like "cetisean. Would anyone know what the name of this critter is nad where I coult get one? Please help, I am on my 14th hour of looking at websites.
Leslie

ANSWER: Well Leslie, I am sorry to say I do not know what fish you are refering too. The only fish I know of which would be even close, but not really, would be a eel or maybe a dragon head fish. But I doubt either is which you are refering too. It sounds like an amazing fish though. I have had a large variety of fish over the years and have never seen anything except an eel, which would be close to the fish you write about. The only suggestion I would have would be to copy and paste you question at a variety of the other experts to see if they might know something. I am sorry I could not help you figure out what the fish was. Hopefully you will find out what it is and how to get it. If you do find out, I would be greatly appreciative if you would let me know. It sounds like an interesting inhabitant. Also, I am always trying to broaden my knowledge to help people more and more.
         Rachel A.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Rachel,
I have Finally found the worm! It is a Caecilian worm, also reffered to as... rubber worms,eel worm,rubber eel,worm fish,black worm,medusa worm, and sicilian worm. aqualandpets.com has some true to form photos on their website,as well as very accurate descriptions of the worms behavior, all of which my worm possessed. The pet shop owner then informed me South America was going to halt their export, which seemed to have happened as some pet suppliers I spoke to hadn't had them available for years. I had finally found a shop in CA who had just started getting them again and another in IA.
I would highly reccomend this to an EXPERIENCED hobbyist as they are somewhat time consuming.The nitrate and pH levels need to be monitored frequently as they like to burrow into the gravel to hide, they are quite shy but tamable as I was able to hand feed mine. You MUST cover and tape down any potential exits to the aquarium they are crafty escape artists, this includes the filter as I had found them in the bio-wheel resivior on more than one occasion. Some literature states that they can be aggressive,eating smaller fish this has not been my experience, though my smallest fish in the tank was a glass catfish. They are also temperature sensitive so I always kept an extra heater on hand in case of a malfunction with mine (which had happened causing me to run to Wal-Mart at midnight to get a replacement. The photo's on this website look just like mine, though again I had seen them black and a VERY dark brown.

Answer
Thank you very much for letting me know. They sound like an awesome specimine. It would be cool to have the eat from your hand. I have had a few platys, goldfish, angelfish, and cory catfish who I have trained to do that but not many fish will actually do that. Its crazy that the worm would actually get into the filter. I have had several snails get stuck on the filter intake and almost die because they were begin sucked in, thankfully I found them in time, but I have never had any fish actually get into the filter box. I will definately do more research on them now that I know the name. Thanks again!
         Rachel A.