Its an Invasion of the "oohh snap..." kind...

[Yellow_donkey]

So quick backstory. 60 gallon cube, coming up on two years now, all parameters are great although I think my RODI let me down last month as I have a diatom sand bloom this month. So I just accelerated my water change and siphoned the sand, fun times!

Anywho, back in the day I had one bristle worm, I knew where he lived and he was named Charlie. He lived under the rock at the front right and I tired to catch him every so often until I got lucky late one night and Charlie was evicted. Fast forward almost 2 years and and 37th generation of Charlie is hitting me a vengeance, why you ask? I overfeed, I know that, it was innocent until now. I have always had a big ball of cheato and nitrate below 5. Well now I am paying for it.

So I removed the auto pellet and flake feeder and have cut my manual frozen food feeding back to less than half what I used to feed. Which is still probably too much.

So to take the story back to the 37th generation of Charlie the bristleworm, its now a goddamn facking invasion. They are under every rock, coral, snail shell, crevices, and in-between. All along I have fought them and gotten the big guys out, you know the ones that are near an inch or so, I have even pulled some personal bests out nearing 2 inches, maybe 2 or 3 of those guys. Anyways, my latest and most disturbing encounter with them is in my filter sock!

So I have a two line overflow setup, one is trickle and one is full bore, the trickle is where my limpets reside (they like the partial water partial air, little guys, not bad, but in my full bore line I have just started to get bristle worms, tiny/little guys!

So this started about 30 days ago, as I have always turned the socks inside out, I use 10 micron absolutes and they are changed every 2 days. So about 30 days ago I turn them inside out, rinse them and then ring them. I would always take a quick glance at the contents to see if anybody needed saving and the ring it out like no tomorrow. We'll I don't know when exactly they started appearing in the sock but 30 days ago I found one tiny little Charlie 38th or maybe 39th now. Real tiny we are talking 1 or 2 mm at the biggest. Next sock one was found, next sock none, next sock 2, next sock 3, this sock last night 6...

Needless to say the ringing of the dirty socks has gone form a 30 second process to a 10 minute process to make sure I am not going to get pricked.:thumbsup:

Now my fight in the tank has picked up, I have started using traps of panty hose and manual removal late at night, so my question is this. Has anyone else had these guy in their socks and secondly what is going on, do I have a resident worm, you know the thing that nightmares are made of camping my drain line which is about 15' in length!? Do they expel reproductive stuffs when I remove them this as they are removed they reproduce more?

How do these guys multiple, free floating, water column larvae? Live birth into the sand? These super tiny guys in the sock are they microscopic and then grow to visible in the 2 days they lay in the sock? I DO NOT have that many free floating visable worms that can go over and down into my sumps suck from the DT.

Also, my sump is free of anything, as I have used the 10 micron socks, its visually very clean, so I can only suspect that everything is sourcing from the DT only.

Anyone else had them in socks, keep fighting them is my goal, any words of support, ideas, anything I can do differently to avoid this continues onslaught. And yes I am working on overfeeding, they wont exist is they don't have the food.

 

[water is wet]

There's no need to remove them when the food source dwindles so will their numbers.

 

[Dmoody]

Would a wrasse help?


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[kmbyrnes]

Your bristleworms eat detritus. This is good.
You now have too many bristleworms, this means you have too much detritus. This is bad.
Remove detritus and the bristleworm count will decline as the food supply and the bristleworm population reaches an equilibrium.

 

[homer1475]

there's no need to remove them when the food source dwindles so will their numbers.

your bristleworms eat detritus. This is good.
You now have too many bristleworms, this means you have too much detritus. This is bad.
Remove detritus and the bristleworm count will decline as the food supply and the bristleworm population reaches an equilibrium.

+3

 

[oldhead]

A 2" bristle worm is pretty small.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euiJZKUY0tQ

 

[DesertReefT4r]

+3

I have had them in all my past tanks. They never bothered me too much, got sung once in awhile by bigger ones. I never tried removing them, just part of the life in a reef tank. If you use LR you are guaranteed to get bristleworms, they will also come in on frag rocks and plugs. To prevent introduction start with dry rock, dip, qt and remove all plugs from frags. To control them add a fish that eats them like a wrasse.

 

[Bent]

Give me some.

 

[Anemone]

Just to pile on - no need to go to great lengths to remove the bristleworms; they're good. The fact you have what you perceive to be a lot, means there is a lot for them to feed on in the tank, so cut down on your feedings, and just like algae, the bristleworms will fade to a manageable number.

Kevin

 

[Yellow_donkey]

Thanks everyone, I was not expecting a 100% approval rating on old Bristle worm. I dont like worms mentality is what is taking over, if they had happy little faces with furry tail it be all good.

But ya I am worried about getting bristled cleaning the socks out is main thing now. I have really cut back on food an removed the auto feeder. One time a day about half and that is still too much, no wonder all my dogs are overweight.

I also had an overpopualtion of brittle starfish, little arms everywhere. Since I have cut back I can see them out on the glass during day and night scavaging which they never used to do when there was overfeeding. So they are thinning back as well.

Next tank I will be using dead rock which I did with this tank but then bought one piece of live rock at the 1 year mark or so and that is when they came in. Ohh well I do feel better, you mostly only see them at night and then not unles you throw food in, so thats cool. Thanks everyone.

 

[mav3rick478]

Micro brittle stars are good to have too. If you have any type of wrasse they'll hunt them down and eat them. My yellow wrasse used to toss them up and swallow them. It was quite the sight.

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[Kevin Guthrie]

AFAIK my bristle worms stay in the substrate. I didn't know they could swim, much less reach an overflow. Does starvation make them swim?

 

[mndfreeze]

I really don't understand why people have such an insane aversion to the micro-life in their reef tanks. I'm a part of local facebook groups and have similar discussions to this every few days. Most of the people who are freaking out tend to be women who have the 'eewww grosss' mentality of it (nothing against them being women, just an observation).

A lot people don't seem to understand just how vital all that micro life really is to a healthy reef ecosystem. In an ideal environment you would have the right sized mouth and food choice for every bit of detritus/waste/missed food/algae that gets generated but since we are in closed systems we of course are missing many links in that entire chain from bacteria to fish. IMO the more things that are safe to your chosen livestock that are a part of that chain, the better.

Those micro stars and bristle worms get into places your purchased clean up crew cannot, and they also expel waste of a different size than them as well that even smaller things can eat easier, like corals, or bacteria.

I recently started back into the hobby after an 8 year break and started with sterile rock as its what I had on hand. I actively struggle to find people who will give me bristle worms, micro brittles, etc to seed with lolol. If anyone wants to send me a bunch of micro brittles, spaghetti and bristle worms, please do.

 

[mndfreeze]

AFAIK my bristle worms stay in the substrate. I didn't know they could swim, much less reach an overflow. Does starvation make them swim?

There are different species of bristles we get in the home reefs and generally do NOT swim but can. Some of them reproduce that way by swiming up into the currents then exploding into a bunch of baby worms. lol

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

There are different species of bristles we get in the home reefs and generally do NOT swim but can. Some of them reproduce that way by swiming up into the currents then exploding into a bunch of baby worms. lol

Yep, epitokes.

 

[Yellow_donkey]

AFAIK my bristle worms stay in the substrate. I didn't know they could swim, much less reach an overflow. Does starvation make them swim?

I didnt think about that, all that I find are super super small, the size that if I did poke it, would a bristle even stick size. But they are there. I suspect that are spawned and then water born and grow to this size in the 3 to 4 days between sock changes. That size. Although I have had some up to half the size of a pencil eraser, but most are much much smaller.

I need to google how they spawn, is it like snails with gamate mixed in water, live birth, I have no idea how worms reproduce. But it all all the super duper tiny ones, which I can only guess are in the water column for whatever reason, end up going to the sump.

 

[Yellow_donkey]

Micro brittle stars are good to have too. If you have any type of wrasse they'll hunt them down and eat them. My yellow wrasse used to toss them up and swallow them. It was quite the sight.

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I had a 6-line, he was great, but decided to go hardwood surfing one day, never came home :hmm3:

 

[Yellow_donkey]

I really don't understand why people have such an insane aversion to the micro-life in their reef tanks. I'm a part of local facebook groups and have similar discussions to this every few days. Most of the people who are freaking out tend to be women who have the 'eewww grosss' mentality of it (nothing against them being women, just an observation).

A lot people don't seem to understand just how vital all that micro life really is to a healthy reef ecosystem. In an ideal environment you would have the right sized mouth and food choice for every bit of detritus/waste/missed food/algae that gets generated but since we are in closed systems we of course are missing many links in that entire chain from bacteria to fish. IMO the more things that are safe to your chosen livestock that are a part of that chain, the better.

Ya, I dont mind them a ton unless they are big and my idea of big I am sure is not even that big. We have all seen that 3' plumbing line worm and that did give me nightmares. I amily figth them becasue I want the wife to enjoy the tank, which she does at well, but I hate the "eeeww threes another bristle worm" yelled throughout the house every other day when she sees one.
Those micro stars and bristle worms get into places your purchased clean up crew cannot, and they also expel waste of a different size than them as well that even smaller things can eat easier, like corals, or bacteria.

I recently started back into the hobby after an 8 year break and started with sterile rock as its what I had on hand. I actively struggle to find people who will give me bristle worms, micro brittles, etc to seed with lolol. If anyone wants to send me a bunch of micro brittles, spaghetti and bristle worms, please do.