Hundreds of bristle worms and aptasia

[Giovanni]

I just got 110 lbs of live rock for a new tank I am getting. It came from a fellow RCers tank. It is covered with bristle worms. What would be the fastest way to rid the rock of them before I put them in my new tank. I have it in stacked in a 39 gallon tank to the top with a couple of fish, power heads and some light over it now. I also have a ton of aptasia on the rock. :(

Would I have any luck with a copper banded butterfly or a 6 line or both.

Thanks in advance.

[dj synystr]

copper would devour the aptasia but not sure about the bristle worms. i personally dont mind them in my system they eat all the debrie and crap on the bopttom of your tank. i only have them in my refugium now but theres so many you can see them moving around freely.

[Donjc]

Try a freshwater dip it usually brings them all out

[Sk8r]

I had the same situation and just let them go through the cycle, which was minor, thanks to all the life on the rocks. Now the worms at least are helpful citizens---and peppermint shrimp are diminishing the aiptasia. If you've got sincerely live rock that is still inhabited, I wouldn't do anything to cause a dieoff, which can only delay the cycle. Everything on my rock survived, spionid worms, featherdusters, sponge, worms, amphipods, copepods, pulsing xenia, discosoma mushrooms, and snails, incl stomatellas and strombus, and the cycle lasted about 24 hours at its worst. Surviving aiptasia are such a minor inconvenience counting all the wonderful sealife I inherited.

[Giovanni]

Sk8r,

What 24hr cycle are you talking about.

[venwu225]

bristle worms are beneficial animals!!!! They are normal reef fauna, you want to keep them.

[Giovanni]

I thought they would get in the gills of the fish and irratate them.


Is there a down side to the copper banded butterfly?

[venwu225]

the gill issue is a urban myth. 39 gallon might be a bit small for a copperband, all the ones I had have been in 50 gallons and above...

[armagedon48]

i have read that arrow crabs will eat bristle worms. look into it. arrow crabs are interesting at the least. that and a pepermint shrimp would be great additions. (i however dont like pepermint shimps. i sold mine today because he steals food from my coral)

[gearqueer]

You can use joes juice on the aiptasia it is like a mix of lime juice and other stuff. It works instantly on aiptasia. Awesome.
For the bristleworms I had a bunch more than I wanted and I have seen them in and on my corals so I was worried they may hurt them. So i bought a bristleworm trap from my LFS. It's a green tube. you put bait in a chamber and leave the tube in the aquarium overnight. Worms go in but they don't come out. Then you dump'em in the morning. I had fun trapping them and after a couple weeks there were almost no bristleworms in there at all.

[romunov]

The worms are limited by food. If you stop feeding them, they will deminish in numbers.

[Giovanni]

gearqueer,

I have seen these traps and wondered if they work. Thanks for the tip. What bait do you use?

[Captain Amazing]

ICURN,

I got a lot of live rock from a guy for really cheap because it was covered in aiptasia. Joe's Juice worked great for getting rid of the majority of my hundreds of aiptasia, but it can't kill them all. Now when I hit one with Joe's Juice, 5 more baby aiptasia's pop up where the big one died. But it worked great to get rid of most of them, and thin their population. My peppermint shrimp won't touch it, and I even tried those Berghia Verrucicornis nudibranchs that are supposed to eat aiptasia. I put them in my tank a few months ago and haven't seen them since, so who knows if they're doing their job or not. So I finally emptied all critters from my tank except the peppermints, have the lights off in the tank and do not feed it. Hopefully that gets rid of the aiptasia.

[Giovanni]

I am thinking I will move the rock to my new 70RR and buy a male copper banded butterfly to eat the aiptasia. I think I will get one of those little green traps for the worms.

BTW I did a close inspection of my current sump at night and saw some worms in it, but I do not have them in my main tank. I guess one of my fish has kept them under control.

Thanks for your advice.