For all those who worship their DSBs!

[brianq]

When I had bristle worms my clams, elegance and hammer were constantly bothered by them. So much so that they would not open. Finally, enough was enough and I have since erradicated my tank of all worms using a coral banded shrimp, dottyback and Aero crab. Note - my sandbed at the time was only about 1.5 inches of crushed coral.

My question is this -
I am designing a new tank when I move and REALLY want to go the DSB route using SD. But will the worms once again be a problem as before? Has anyone had similiar problems? Or will the increase in depth help alleviate the problem. Thanks.

[percula]

If they were a problem before, they will still live in the upper area of the bed. If you want them gone from the begining, set up the tank, w/ only rock, throw an arrow crab in there for a week or more, then put the bed down, shouldnt be too many left to bother your show peices. Same thing you did, but at the begining...

[Agu]

Sorry but I can't give an informed response, I've never actually worshipped at the alter of the DSB.

I currently have three tanks with dsb and have had no problems with bristle worms.

fwiw,
Agu

[Aquamans Reef]

I agree w/agu two tanks never had a problem. Joe

[OrionN]

Originally posted by brianq
When I had bristle worms my clams, elegance and hammer were constantly bothered by them. So much so that they would not open.....
I got lots of bristle worms. One huge one about 2 feet in lenght that I saw once. There are literly many hundreds of them in my tank. They don't bother my corals and clams. I got 12 clams and about 50+ SPS and about 10 LPS in my tank (400 g with 125 g sump/refugium).
If your corals are not open, it is not because bristle worms. If you fing a dead clam with bristle worms in it, it was not the bristle worms that killed the clam. The clam died or dying and the bristle worms were there just clean it up.
I think you place the blame of your tank doing poorly to the wrong animal.

[Vilas]

I'd have to agree...bristle worms are not the killers of the reef tank, as once though, but mostly scavengers. Note the mostly, but I'd poke around a bit more before assigning blame.
From my understanding of a DSB, you need sand stirring critters, such as these worms, to make it work.

[dendronepthya]

If a coral starts to decline, and the bristle worms are upon it further stressing it, I blame them for eventually killing it. I don't like the idea of bristle worms immediately chomping on a coral the moment it becomes vulnerable. If a coral starts to die, you can make changes in hopes that it will rally, but it won't rally if it doesn't get a chance to. There are all sorts of beneficial invertibrates that do not eat corals. I don't think you'll miss the bristle worms.

[brianq]

Minh Nguyen - Trust me, I am not automatically placing any blame on bristle worms, BUT when I did have them all of my corals were very happy except the ones that were exposed in the sand - Frogspawn, Elegance, and clams.

The elegance was the first to show. When I picked him up there were bristle worms embedded in its opening at the bottom. I would then pick them out one by one and seat him back. A couple of hours later he would be fine and open up nicely. However, in a couple of days the same reaction would take place and I would have to perform the same procedure. Finally decided to place him up on the rock work where he did very well. After about 2 weeks of good health I again moved him back to the substrate. It didn't take long (~ 2-3 days) before he began to show the same symptoms. I decided enough was enough and took measures to rid my sandbed of the nuisance.

This is only my experience and I wanted to see if others have had similiar problems. Don't get me wrong; I did not come to my conclusion just over a couple of days...more like months and months of frustration. I know even Borneman points out in his book that bristle worms can irritate these types of corals. Today my elegance is back on the substrate and I have never had the problem since getting rid of the bristle worms.