If you had 1000 M&Ms in a bowl, and youd eaten a hundred without ill effect, but then you watched someone else eat one and keel over dead... would take reach in the bowl and eat another one?
I totally believe that most people have never witnessed bristleworms causing damage. Most of my observations of bristleworms have also featured bristleworms lookin totally innocent. Similarly, for a long time I believed peppermint shrimp are harmless because I'd never seen one causing problems.
Then one day I turned a flashlight on my tank and watched 5 peppermints devour my Pocillopora from a healthy furry colony down to a bare skeleton in under an hour. I no longer make claims that peppermints are harmless.
Bristleworms are far from harmless, I have personally witnessed them killing a healthy feather duster and also causing serious damage to Tubastrea and Dendrophyllia while stealing food from their mouths.
Kill it with fire. (Sadly its really hard to get rid of them all, so the best bet is probably to get a predator to do it for you)
I know this will anger the bristleworm police but as long as we have people making claims that just because they havent witnessed something, it must not exist, we will have to keep pointing this out
