removing bristle worms

[afelder]

I hate to ask because I love having the things but how do you remove bristle worms. I have a friend who has estimated that she has over 6000 in her 150 gallon she has tried everything up to (shudder) boiling her live rock. Please let me know before she takes even more drastic measures. And I have a heart attack from hearing what she did now.


Thank you
Ariel

 

[bboy aqua]

I dont know how to remove them but I can tell you this
you wont ever get rid of them all exept when doing crazy stuff like "boiling" your LR

 

[jaymz101]

Unless they are eating corals, attacking fishes, Id leave them. There are only a select few that are harmful to home aquaria. The rest are quite beneficial.

 

[Sk8r]

If the place needs to sell a few on, there are worm traps available at Foster/Smith. It's going to take a while to trap a good fraction of those, but they do work. Offer them on ebay.

 

[PufferFish87]

I would tell her not to worry about it and not remove them.. There are also fish that will eat them like certain wrasses like the 6 line wrasse... If she must remoev them she could do fresh water dips on the LR and they will crawl out and she could grab them w/ tweezers or somthing.. but obviously there is no way to get all of them out.. especially if shes got 6000 of them lol

 

[smy168]

I agree with PufferFish87, get a couple of sixlines and they will at least control them a bit. Bristles will reproduce at a alarming rate if the conditions are right. i must have about300-400 in my 120 and 40-50 in my 24. They don't do anything but clean my sandbed and rock of detritus but 5000 is insane.

 

[kass03]

Yeah the more you feed the more you'll have.
Many years ago people thought they were bad and eat corals but they finally figured out they are usually harmless and only eat things if they are already dead or dying.
If you have liverock your going to have bristles IMO.
They help clean up the tank.

kass

 

[masterqaz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7649710#post7649710 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by smy168
I agree with PufferFish87, get a couple of sixlines and they will at least control them a bit. Bristles will reproduce at a alarming rate if the conditions are right. i must have about300-400 in my 120 and 40-50 in my 24. They don't do anything but clean my sandbed and rock of detritus but 5000 is insane.

no that would be foolish. sixlines will just kill each other. sixlines are not the only things that will eat them. you can try out larger wrasses as well.

 

[sarahkucera]

This may sound goofy, but everyday I manage to flush about 20 to 30 of them down the drain.
I trap them with my mag-float cleaner thingie. I just leave it down at the bottom of the tank overnight and they crawl between it's bristles and then I flush them out of it. I doubt that I'm making a dent in their population, but it gives me some satisfaction to get rid of some of them every day.

 

[Sk8r]

If they're small enough to fit in the mag float bristles, they're probably spaghetti worms, unless they're really, really baby-sized worms.

 

[sarahkucera]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7725754#post7725754 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sk8r
If they're small enough to fit in the mag float bristles, they're probably spaghetti worms, unless they're really, really baby-sized worms.

They're baby sized worms and the mag float is the biggest one they make.
The bigger woms live in the rocks. I've got two living in my overflows right now who are like grand-daddy worms that are at least four or more inches long.

No flash:
<img src="http://www.midnightmadness.org/sarah/saltwater/30406/DSC05494.JPG" width=600 height=374>

With flash:
<img src="http://www.midnightmadness.org/sarah/saltwater/30406/DSC05503.JPG" width=600 height=473>

 

[Glove]

Can we get an ID on the worms in the above pic? I mean are these coral eaters or tank cleaners? I have a few in a nano stuffed with zoas and it would be nice to know what good bristle worms look like vs tha bad ones.
Mine are metalic looking red and blue like the ones in these pics.

 

[Sk8r]

They're bristleworms, all right. They're the good kind, detrivores---they can get in among your zoas and keep them clean: they also reduce the snail poo to something the zoas can absorb from the water.

You don't want to touch one: for some reason, the bristles do no harm to coral 'skin', but they sure get us, probably because our skin is rougher and catches the bristles. Got some in my finger the other day, and it took about 3 days to get rid of them. [A dough eraser such as artists use can give some relief. ] Use gloves if moving rock: that's how you get stung.

 

[sarahkucera]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7725995#post7725995 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Glove
Can we get an ID on the worms in the above pic? I mean are these coral eaters or tank cleaners? I have a few in a nano stuffed with zoas and it would be nice to know what good bristle worms look like vs tha bad ones.
Mine are metalic looking red and blue like the ones in these pics.

Yep, those are bristleworms.
They have never harmed anything in my tank, although they are kind of creepy.
They clean up crap and don't ever bother anything living in the tank.
They live in my zoa rock and have never bothered my zoas, in fact the zoas have spread more in the last three months than they did in 3 years for their previous owner.
Most tanks seem to have them, the heavier you feed the more proliferous they are!

Thanks,
Sarah

 

[fishhaven]

Hate to butt in. Just found this in my tank this morning. ID???

 

[azrien]

I have one of those! I also would like to know what that interesting worm is.

 

[keithntracy]

don't know what that it except down right creepy....