Bristle worms
- Thread starter TUSI
- Start date
While there are few species that are trouble, most bristle worms you come across are useful detritivores. Unless you actually catch one in the act of causing trouble, such as a big fat fireworm eating a coral, I would leave them alone. They can be quite useful as part of a clean up crew, in fact to the point that people will pay good money to buy them 
doTheEvolution
New member
Wow, are you feeding in very small amounts?
jenglish
Marquis de Carabas
Bristle worms will reproduce pretty quick if there is plenty to eat. I would think unless you have fish that require very regular feedings, 3x a day is a lot of nutrient to remove. Everything that goes in needs to come out in one way or another. I do know of setups that allow heavier feeding schedules but it all depends on what you can remove.
I purchased a dozen baby bristleworms (Eurythoe complanata) from Inland Aquatics. They were all about an inch long when I got them. Within six to eight weeks they were all three inches long. Within six months I had several dozen bristleworms ranging in size from less than an inch to more than six inches. They're great scavengers.
Reproduction in home aquariums is mainly asexual by segmentation. A segment of the worm breaks away and forms a new worm. They do spawn and reproduce sexually but none of the larvae would survive in our tanks.
Most of the bristleworms that we come across are beneficial scavengers. There are a few notable exceptions such as Hermodice carunculata, which looks like a wooly caterpillar, but you're not likely to come across those unless you purchased Gulf of Mexico aquacultured live rock. It's very easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys based on their behavior. Fortunately you are much more likely to have nothing but good guys.
Here's a picture of one of the good guys (E. complanata) in my tank. That one is about six inches long. Eurythoe complanata
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Sorry about that. It showed up for me but I guess it was too large a file or something. I switched it to a link. See if that works. Let me know if you see it this time.
Thanks!
I had four that had names---lost them when I moved, and I was so upset about it. They were each about a foot long--and were quite personable: each had its rock, and would stretch out to get a food pellet, and I quite liked them. I have stony and soft coral and a clam, no trouble, I assure you. They'll also clean up any fat turbo snail that dies under your rockwork, inaccessible to fish.
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