bristleworms?

[OwenInAZ]

I noticed what I *think* is fire bristleworm in my tank. It's mostly red, but it has a black part (half?) as well. It likes to live in an otherwise onoccupied snail shell, apparently, since I've seen it in the vicinity of said shell most often.

I've been doing some reading, and it appears as if most people leave them in unless they're misbehaving in some way. I don't have any fish, my corals seem to be doing fine, and if it wants to eat pods or detritus or something it can go right ahead, IMHO. Do most of ye olde tymers leave them in too? Or should I endeavor to remove it? I have a crappy picture but I can try and get a better one if I need to.

 

[OwenInAZ]

Update:

Upon further reading, I think I have Eurythoe complanata, which is listed as harmless on Chucksaddiction.com. In lieu of a picture from me, here's one that looks pretty similar, from what I can tell:

 

[OwenInAZ]

Ah-ha! Got a good one, despite nagging by my wife to stop staring at the tank like an idiot!

 

[ReefAA]

The one you have is perfectly fine. Leave it, its beneficial to your system. As your reef ages, these critters help dispose of dead creatures that go in, around and behind rock work to die, where you cant get to them.

 

[4218kris]

bristleworms are great to have eat all kind of crud

 

[OwenInAZ]

Sweet. I just found another (smaller) one crawling around on the glass, so of course I had to stare at it for a while. I am continually amazed by the diversity of life in this little tiny ecosystem. It makes me super impatient to get the new one set up

 

[KarlBob]

I used to keep fresh water tanks, then finally tried a reef tank. The number of critters I saw that I didn't put in the tank was amazing to me. Even more awesome critters showed up after dark.

I wonder. Is it the presence of live rock and live sand that gives reef tanks so many more hitchhikers than freshwater tanks? Or do most freshwater environments just have less diversity than a reef?

 

[KBurn]

That's funny, when I first seen the pic I thought it was a horseshoe
crab

 

[captain639]

Those little buggers like to bite if you get too close, like picking up a piece of rock or shell they are hiding in. Doesn't hurt too bad, just scares the *&*# out of you.

 

[jet fixer]

My Lawnmower blenny does the same thing to me every time I stick an arm in the tank. I don't think she likes me moving stuff around.

 

[OwenInAZ]

KarlBob,

I think it's the fact that a reef tank has LR and LS and everything. Freshwater ecosystems are equally diverse, but most people don't replicate a pond with mud and bugs and stuff. We tend to throw in some gravel and fake plants and let it roll.

 

[aztbs]

You want some giant fat bristleworms too add to the party? I have some that are almost as wide as my pinky finger. They are very helpful critters and mostly come out at night. Mostly.

 

[OwenInAZ]

no thanks, remember it's a teeny tank teeny bristleworms are to scale

 

[GustavoAZ]

I just leave em alone, if they big enough to catch easy then I flush em or feed em to my orange spot goby.

 

[4218kris]

my hippo tang eats them he eats anything and my cleaner shrimp

 

[KarlBob]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13654275#post13654275 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by OwenInAZ
KarlBob,

I think it's the fact that a reef tank has LR and LS and everything. Freshwater ecosystems are equally diverse, but most people don't replicate a pond with mud and bugs and stuff. We tend to throw in some gravel and fake plants and let it roll.

Are the planted tanks with CO2 and organic substrate closer to a reef tank in terms of critters?

I just thought of another difference. In reef tanks, most of the inhabitants are obligate aquatic life forms. If they leave the water, they die. In a freshwater ecosystem, you have a lot more amphibious creatures. Insect larvae often grow up in the pond, then morph into flying or crawling adults. Many swimming beetles can walk or fly from one pond to another. Even crayfish can (and sometimes do) survive long enough out of water to crawl down the hall and curl up in your shoe before dying. It's harder to maintain a full ecosystem in a tank full of water when many of the critters spend part of their life cycle on dry land.

I forget the name for them, but some people run tanks that combine aquatic and dry land environments. It would be a challenge, but it might be fun to try to set up a more complete freshwater ecosystem in one of those tanks.

 

[lunarlanderboy]

Another really cool thing about bristle worms that we don't think about a lot is that their larvae are planktonic - so If you have a lot of bristle worms, you have a lot more live zooplankton floating around in your water which is otherwise considerably expensive and/or time consuming to replicate.