Over 260+ items identified - by picture!

[jg013c]

Marc that page you set up was fantastic. I was wondering about what you say about bristle worms being harmless & misunderstood. I am currently setting up my first tank and I noticed that at night bristle worms roam the tank.

I am planning on putting corals in the tank so I am wondering if I should try to rid the tank of the critters. The LFS told me to get rid of them using a tweaser & a flashlight, but this has proven very difficult seeing as how well they move.

Do you (or anyone) really believe bristle worms are no threat to corals?

Do you (or anyone) know a good way to get rid of them?

 

[melev]

jg013c,

[welcome]

Bristleworms are misunderstood worms, because people tend to see them near something that has died in thier tank. Small worms are detrivores, cleaning the sand and eating detritus, excess food and dead livestock. Now when bristleworms get huge (3', 6', 13' long!) that is when they are no longer safe to our captive environment.

Leave them be. If they drive you crazy and you can't stand the look, you can add a longnosed hawkfish or an Arrow Crab. Both of these are hunters of these worms and will eat them, and you can find both of those on the ID page.

 

[jg013c]

The problem is small worms turn into big worms so I either eradicate my tank of them now or I will forever be plucking foot-long's out of my tank in the middle of the night with a flashlight and tweasers...

I have a 12G nano cube so I have to choose my fish very carefully... Do you think a 6-line Wrasse would eat worms or will it just pick off my adorable collection of amphipods?

Ohh an arrow crab? After the arrow crab takes out the worms it may go for the corals next I would then have to get something that eats arrow crabs... Perhaps a cat with a snorkle, would it fit in a nano cube?

 

[melev]

I've never had problems with Arrow Crabs. And bristleworms will be fine. Seriously.

The Six Line will eat pods.

 

[Reefugee]

Thanks for the great site. It is really helpful for a newbie (me).

 

[melev]

mn95616,

[welcome] and you're welcome

 

[joking103]

Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for sharing!

You are providing a great service! Thank You much!

I have been shopping at night in my very, very new tank (only LR & LS) to see who moved in that I did not know about. A little nerve racking!

Who can you put in there to eat all the bad hitchikers yes snails and shrimps and yadda yadda.... So many different ones... But for a brand new person exactly what is best?



Information overload is painful !

 

[melev]

Hi Joking,

If your tank is a 72g, you'll want a bunch of snails. Some say one per gallon but that always sounded like overkill to me. If you have sand, you'll want some nassarius snails, a fighting conch and perhaps a tigertail cucumber to keep the sand stirred and clean of detritus.

Do <b>not</b> get a sand-sifting starfish unless this is a fish-only tank. They eat all the life right out of your sand, and your tank will soon be covered with nuisance algae.

Some hitchhikers are good, some are bad. It is best to find out what you have, then you can determine what it will take to remove the unwanted ones.

 

[will_w]

Awesome post. Thanks for the id's

 

[melev]

Thanks will_w.

 

[sparkys24]

Awesome!

Thanks for the time you put into it!!

 

[wahshk]

Great link for all the new hoppiest. I wish I can have the time to do something like this... Keep up the good work.

 

[melev]

Thanks guys.

 

[Splach]

Hello Melev,

Please feel free to snag any pictures from my thread for my tank for the following critters if you want to add them (you may already have some of these):

Red Emerald crab (page 5)
Porcelain crab (page 5)
orange turnicates (page 6)
some red slug thing (page 6)
red hair algae? (page 6)
black and yellow turnicates (page 7)
gorgon (page 10)
yellow leather (page 10)

I also have a video at the end with a medusa worm. I don't know if you have the ability to pull a frame capture, but you are welcome to use it as well if you would like to.

My tank's thread

 

[melev]

Thanks Casey, I'll check that out soon.

 

[sman21047]

Great Idea. the coments and the pics help me a lot. It will hellp me decide on what to do

 

[Bilb007]

[violation]

 

[melev]

Wow, first time I saw that in one of my threads. Thanks Mike.

FYI, I have a few new items that I'll be adding to the page in the next couple of days.

 

[TwentyFivePSI]

Marc, your webpage is an excellent idea. Thanks for sharing. However perhaps you just have it temporarily offline, but none of the thumbnails are "clickable". I tried opening the page with IE as well as Firefox. Any ideas? I'd love to be able to check out the rest of your page.

 

[melev]

Perhaps you have a pop-up stopper installed? Each thumbnail opens to a new window.