Im looking for best way to animate a poly/subd tentacle wich has to be easy to position but still able to spiral at the end to grab things

tested spline iks but still not useful (or i wasnt able to make the setup correctly) i got it EITHER to be easy to animate OR able to grab, but not BOTH.

(huuum how do you say that it can be done switching between fK and IK?)
and
(can i have two skeleton sets and switch between them as needed?(i mean the active one driving the passive one, then switch...)

Any ideas on how to setup setup such a tentacle?