Bristleworms

[boothy106]

Hi I need some advice, I have had my reef tank set up for 2 years now and have noticed a rather large amount of bristleworms some big some small but non are the dreaded fire worm etc... . I haven't really had any reason to be concerned about them and to be honest I think there quite beneficial to a tank. However I was unlucky that my goby got sick and unfortunately died, I noticed that they ate the goby which proves their worth in the tank by disposing of the wasting fish in a natural way. But what concerns me is I replaced that goby with another, this was a large orange spot goby. He seemed fine and was doing a glorious job but I've now found his half eaten body covered in bristleworms. So my question is are the worms likely to be the culprit or would the fish have died possibly due to the stress of the move and then scavenged.

Kind regards
Jay

 

[borg]

There is no way a bristleworm is going to catch a healthy fish

 

[65Stang]

+1 ^^^ They are doing what they do -- cleanup but not killers. I do hate when they get bigger than about two inches... Beneficial but they creep me out the bigger they get!

 

[snorvich]

Beneficial members of the CUC

 

[CStrickland]

I don't think they are dangerous, and they probably help scrub out nooks in the rocks. But I do think that if you have a really large population it might be an indication that you are over feeding. There shouldn't be enough waste in your tank to sustain hordes of worms, and if there is then you may start to see nutrients creeping up.

 

[borg]

I agree CStrickland

I believe they are self sustaining so if there is not enough food their numbers should reduce. I guess you could also try catching and manually removing as well but thats a bit of pain.

 

[boothy106]

I do pull the occasional one out if the opportunity arises but like I said I think they are beneficial for a tank and so don't actively do this. I didn't think they could harm a healthy fish hence me posting to confirm this but when I say I have a few big ones I'm talking over 6 inches when stretched out. I don't over feed my tank but the population exploded about a year ago when I had an episode of ich and a few fish died unfortunately, the smaller ones I couldn't get out of my rock and so the worms helped but due to that there population grew. I guess that means my new goby must have gotten to stressed during transport and acclimatisation which is disappointing as it was a good looking goby.

 

[borg]

I keep a ruler with inches under my monitor so i can visualize sizes when you guys always speak inches hahaha , i easily have some bristles in the 6inch range maybe even bigger. I think once they get big enough to start venturing out during lights on peroid is when they are getting to confident and maybe need to be removed , but i agree it feels bad removing some but as long as you have a few they should always repopulate if the food source is there i heavily feed my tank so i will always have them in my tank

 

[Coralmassa]

I worked on a 350 gal montipora reef that only had three fish in it, and it was a maze of bristleworms. Not even a few arrow crabs were able to clear them out. never seemed to bother the fish.