PANIC!!! Bristle Worm Alert!

Fish_wiz2 · #1 12/02/2007, 09:40 AM

I just saw a worm (bristle i think) when i came down to look at my tank at night (after dinner actually) it was flat, brown, and has hairy feet. Is it a bristle and should i let it be or R.I.P? Pics will come soon if necessary (i tried to catch it but it ran away). Thanks all.

demonsp · #2 12/02/2007, 09:44 AM

Look here.

http://www.melevsreef.com/id/

And here.

http://www.reefs.org/library/aquariu...97/0697_2.html

Mare100 · #3 12/02/2007, 09:57 AM

Don't hurt your bristle worms.....they're good guys.

M

aquawolf · #4 12/02/2007, 10:02 AM

You can also read this thread that sk8r added to this forum, it is very informative: http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1261478

jden092901 · #5 12/02/2007, 10:09 AM

They are an oppionion issue...I feel they are good. They are an exelecnt clean up crew and only a few types will harm your coral. Even with that, they would have to run out of food before they would eat your coral, they would eat eachother first. I would just leave him. He would have to be really big to eat anything in your tank. If you dont like it, then get a trap. However, its only a "free" clean up crew.

Thanks,

Josh

conjuay · #6 12/02/2007, 11:45 AM

I had a flame angel that I believed choked on a chunk of bristle worm. I came home to a dead fish in the back of the tank and immediately blamed one of the mantis shrimp I keep hearing in there. It's mouth was full (That thing ate constantly!) of what I believe now was bristle worm, it was the right color and consistency. Even with it's mouth ful, I was fairly certain the shrimp did the damage, and I got rid of the body without checking any further. But the way those worms stretch themselves out so thin and then recoil, I'm starting to believe the flame angel "Bit off more than it could chew", literally!
It was a small angel, two inches long at most.

stuccodude · #7 12/02/2007, 12:10 PM

i paid money for my bristle worms

reefergeorge · #8 12/02/2007, 12:16 PM

As long as they are not too big. They are a good thing. IMO

Kryptikhan · #9 12/02/2007, 12:22 PM

Not sure what "big" is...I just saw one this morning and I named it King Kong..was easily 5 inches probably coulda stretched to 7 or 8 if I had a clear look at it.

Sk8r · #10 12/02/2007, 12:42 PM

LOL---I had 4 ten-inchers [among hundreds of lesser ones] in my 54g before the move. Their names were Barney and Fred, and Sam, and I can't remember the 4th one because they looked alike and you only knew them by the rock they lived in. Leslie H said they might be oenone fulgida, but those are supposed to be bad news for clams, and I have a very healthy crocea clam that did make it through the move. Unfortunately, in the delay during moving, my live rock cooked, and I lost my Big 4. I really hope to find others of their kind, and have a candidate---same pearly/orange/pink body with big bristle-tufts that is growing pretty rapidly under one of my frontside rocks. He's gotten big enough to grab a piece of fishfood and take it with him. [Leslie H [Inverts forum] informs me they actually extrude their mouth lining, and suck hard, and that helps them pick up and carry away solid bits that are very light. He has to wait for it to dissolve before he can slurp it up, since they have no way to take it apart, but he is eating like a big worm now.

These guys will save your tank if you have a fish or mega-snail buy it under a rock where you can't get him. They process a dead creature right into the sandbed as worm-poo, and it feeds corals and other microlife before the sandbed turns it into nitrogen gas.

It's that 'circle of life' thing.

This was Sam. Or Barney. But I'm pretty sure it was Sam.

LockeOak · #11 12/02/2007, 03:24 PM

Yeah, bristleworms can process dead stuff very very quickly. Keep them in there, even if you don't like seeing them they mostly stay hidden during the day.

Rewd · #12 12/02/2007, 03:55 PM

I've always wondered where all this bristle worm panic came from. I'd LIKE to find them in my tank.

Fish_wiz2 · #13 12/02/2007, 05:25 PM

Thanks everyone i'll just let him be than R.I.P

conjuay · #14 12/02/2007, 06:15 PM

Quote:

[i] I really hope to find others of their kind, and have a candidate---same pearly/orange/pink body with big bristle-tufts that is growing pretty rapidly under one of my frontside rocks. He's gotten big enough to grab a piece of fishfood and take it with him. [Leslie H [Inverts forum] informs me they actually extrude their mouth lining, and suck hard, and that helps them pick up and carry away solid bits that are very light. He has to wait for it to dissolve before he can slurp it up, since they have no way to take it apart, but he is eating like a big worm now.
[/B]

Have you come across a worm that grabs all sorts of debris and uses it to block it's hole in the rock? I have several, and I thought they were collecting up food that was too large to pull through the entrance, but they continue until the hole is completely plugged! (Must have another route out somewhere else).

There's caulerpa, and shells and what-have-you sticking out of the rock at right angles. Funny looking stuff.

No one's commented about the bristle worm/flame angel incident...
How should I take that?