Bristle Worm help

[MBWhitmore]

i seen a bristle worm in my tank yesterday, what do i need to do to remove this worm

I have a 125 gallon, set up 7 weeks ago 60 lbs live rock....which i am assuming thats how i aquired it.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated


thanks
mike

[boomsticks]

Don't they are very good! They eat crap and poop! Either that or if you really want to rid him of your tank use a coke bottle with some food in it overnight that should catch him.

[DrBDC]

Just be glad and hope it reproduces with others you just haven't seen yet. . You probably got some bad info from a LFS or someone who entered the hobby in the early/mid 90's when every problem with a tank was blamed on bristleworms!

[MBWhitmore]

thanks for the info, i was reading some articles that said it would eat my aneome? thanks for the info


it looks like a gray potato bug with way more legs.

[Sk8r]

Feed it and cultivate it. It will save your tank from nitrates if you lose a snail. Good guys. Just use latex gloves when working where you could put your hand on him. He will not harm corals, only eats detritus and microscopic things [he will steal food pellets, but has to wait for them to dissolve]. He may grow quite long, but he is still safe. He may occasionally give one of your fish a 'beard' if the fish bothers him, but the spines fall off in 2 days and the fish is unhurt.

a bristleworm has setae [bristles] in clumps all up and down his body. He may be red, pink, orange, peach, sometimes with a blackish/greyish section [his gut, which shows through.] His head is plain, no tentacles. If you have a worm with 'legs' and 4 distinct armored tentacles around the head, that is a eunicid worm, not a friendly guy.

[albatross666]

Hi

So can i assume that the following is old information?
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/bristlewrmfaqs.htm

I have a few, at least one id 4 inches long. I have been trying to catch it for almost a week, no results yet.

Thanks

[DrBDC]

If you have small children in the house be careful because they can get really big and crawl out of the tank.
http://www.oregonreef.com/images/photos/p_069_l.jpg




























Just kidding! :lol:

[MBWhitmore]

wow yeah now i am not really sure, i have only seen it twice.

it was grey and looked more like a catapiller than anything.

[Sk8r]

No bad bristleworms. 'Fireworm' is a name often applied to bristleworms, but they're eaters of the dead---not the living. They always turn up next to a corpse, but this doesn't mean they killed the critter. They will prevent its rot from polluting your tank: they will pass the nasty, smelly gelatinously decayed matter through their gut and turn out a mild powdery poo that will actually feed your corals...in fact, some authorities say there would be no coral reefs if not for bristleworms, whose poo is exactly the right size for corals to intake. ;) Protect your bristleworms. If you have hundreds and hundreds, this is not too many, because the reason you have hundreds is because that's how much 'food' is floating around your tank. Wipe them out, and you could see your nitrates rise.
Try to pass that word around, and be confident you're right. You're just not going to see bad worms. Bad crabs, bad shrimp, yes: plenty of those. But worms are 99.9 percent good guys and your chances of getting a bad one are, consequently, .1 percent. That's with a decimal.
Look up eunicid worm and learn what it looks like. There are abundant pix on the internet. That's the most common of the bad guys...and remember---he's a very rare customer. For the rest---good guys!
Whitmore, if he looked like a 'wooly bear' caterpillar, he's a bristleworm: his gray segment is is gut. Next time you see him, see if he has bristles like a caterpillar or legs like a centipede: that's significant. If he has bristles, he's as good guy.

[albatross666]

Wow,

Thanks for the information. I am so glad that an RC Moderator responded.

I had been trying every night trying to catch what I thought was a bad guy.

Thanks a ton!

[MBWhitmore]

yea thank you

i am going to try and snap a pic of this critter

[jake32010]

you should get a coral banded shrimp they eat them

[RobNJ]

you need to double your live rock.... :) 60 is not enough for a 125.

[uscharalph]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11120403#post11120403 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DrBDC
If you have small children in the house be careful because they can get really big and crawl out of the tank.
http://www.oregonreef.com/images/photos/p_069_l.jpg
Just kidding! :lol:
That just creeps me out!!!

[DrBDC]

I guess there really can be "too much of a good thing!" :lolspin:

BTW that's a pic on oregonreef.com

[demonsp]

These are the resone for rubber gloves. And they are a caution critter. The small ones im sure would be fine but its the large ones that can eat coral and even fish. I dont think thousands of dollars of coral are not worth any fireworm.

[Sk8r]

Even that big a bristleworm wouldn't eat corals or fish. The coral banded shrimp, however, will eat fish...bristleworms, snails, other shrimp, and anything else it can get its claws onto.

[miketrevino]

most bristleworms are EXTREMELY beneficial. i wouldnt remove it unless it was a coral eater.

[miketrevino]

most bristleworms are EXTREMELY beneficial. i wouldnt remove it unless it was a coral eater.

[nrstype]

I thought bristle worms were bad, but I have a few in my nano tank now that was on some coral frags I purchased from a member here, and now.. the more I have, the cleaner my sandbed, and my corals are doing great.

[Vinnie71975]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11122754#post11122754 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by uscharalph
That just creeps me out!!! Wish i had it in my tank!

[dedex]

So, do bristleworms just "show up" or can you purchase these - I'm obviously new to this;-)

[albatross666]

Hi

They can be introduced to the tank via live rock that you place in your tank and you can also buy them.