Bristle Worm Warfare!

[robert125381]

I have too many bristle worms in my 17 gallon nano!

At first I did not mind but now that I have some coral in there I notice them eating on my coral and it seems like I have to have a hundred of them in my little tank!

What kind of fish can I buy that will control the population of the worms yet not pick on my clowns or chew on all my corral?

 

[Bent]

Bristle worms don't eat corals brah. In fact they rarely leave the substrate.

0n a scale of 1-10, how positive are you these are bristle worms? Got a pic?

 

[robert125381]

I am certain they are Bristle Worms.

I actually never see them in the sand bed they are always chilling in the rock and picking at the Zoas I put in there or crawling all over them and causing them to constantly close up.

I have one in there that has to be 18 inches long its huge!

 

[Bent]

I am certain they are Bristle Worms.

I actually never see them in the sand bed they are always chilling in the rock and picking at the Zoas I put in there or crawling all over them and causing them to constantly close up.

I have one in there that has to be 18 inches long its huge!

I gotta see a pic of that!

But I know for a fact that arrow crabs will decimate them. They are like those tripods in war of the worlds.

The only problem is that your fish won't be safe. But if the population is that significant, it may leave them alone until the easier food source is depleted.

 

[robert125381]

I will try to upload a good pic or video when I get home tonight.

What about a wrasse?

 

[robert125381]

Or a dottyback?

 

[Bent]

I will try to upload a good pic or video when I get home tonight.

What about a wrasse?

I'm not sure but I think the only wrasses that will eat them are not reef safe.

 

[Servillius]

The reason you have too many bristle works is you have too much excess nutrients/food and they're acting as a sink for it. If they're going after corals it's because the corals are unhealthy. Correlation not causation.

 

[hotelbravo]

bristle worms will live on coral and eat off of them but will not actually eat the coral. they should not be bothering anything but your eyes.

 

[dkeller_nc]

I've never heard of a common bristleworm that's 18 inches long. If that's not an exaggeration, then you may actually have a Eunice worm (otherwise known as a "bobbitt worm"). Those will definitely eat healthy coral. And fish. And everything else. Here's the wikipedia article on them.

There's another type of polychaete worm called a "fire worm". These can also get quite large, though nowhere near as large as a bobbitt worm. And they will also eat coral, particularly soft coral. Here's the wikipedia article on them.

If you google either worm and select "images", you'll get lots of photographs. Note that Bent is correct - common bristle worms don't eat coral, fish or inverts, though they will go after fish food. They're fairly small - a big one would be 6" long stretched out.

 

[Nano sapiens]

It's kind of creepy to have 100+ (imagine all those that aren't seen!) crawling around in a nano tank. This is indeed a common situation in tanks that are fed too much.

Whenver my population gets a bit too large in my nano, I start picking them out with a tweezer. Lift up a rock or two and there's usually 3-4 that are easy to pick out. I also found that this little fella (Red Galathea Crab) has a real gusto for Bristlewoms and is small enough not to bother fish ('A Fistful of Bristleworms'):

Largest common Bristleworm I had one day decided to do laps all stretched out against my glass and provided me the chance to measured it at 12" long. Good chance to get him out, too. But even ones at that length have never eaten any corals in the tank.

 

[Bent]

I've never heard of a common bristleworm that's 18 inches long. If that's not an exaggeration, then you may actually have a Eunice worm (otherwise known as a "bobbitt worm"). Those will definitely eat healthy coral. And fish. And everything else. Here's the wikipedia article on them.

There's another type of polychaete worm called a "fire worm". These can also get quite large, though nowhere near as large as a bobbitt worm. And they will also eat coral, particularly soft coral. Here's the wikipedia article on them.

If you google either worm and select "images", you'll get lots of photographs. Note that Bent is correct - common bristle worms don't eat coral, fish or inverts, though they will go after fish food. They're fairly small - a big one would be 6" long stretched out.

I was thinking a Eunice too.