Worms that fish

[Afishianado]

I have seen these little things in my tank. They send out these filaments, usually in groups of 2, sometimes more. They are usually between 1 and 3 inches long.They are nearly transparent, no coloring at all. They then seem to reel them in dragging all kinds of stuff with them. The sand that gets drug up gets used to make a sand tube that the filaments come out of. The rest gets eaten I guess. They are kind of cool and I guess that it means my tank is doing ok. But.... the things ultimately put out so much of a mess in waste that I don't want them in certain parts of the tank. Near the sand is ok. But they can dump enough waste right into the middle of my GSP's in one day to keep them closed up for some time. I find my self turkey basting the waste off of everything about once a week. What are these little things? and how do I get rid of selected ones? I should be able to post a pic within the next 2 days.

Chris

[Edited by Afishianado on 04-30-2001 at 04:14 PM]

[rshimek]

Chris,

Probably they are a type of bristle worm called a chaetopterid. They are part of the sediment clean up crew in a lot of tanks. A number of fish tend to prey on them, copper band butterflys, and probably other nipping fishes.

Shrimps tend to eat them as well.

Generally, these predators don't eradicate them, but rather lower the population densities.

Consider that they are eating material that needs processing, and their abundance is indicative of amount of such material in your tank. If they don't eat it, something else will have to, or you will have some problems. Other worms also seem to out compete them at times, particularly the - (sigh...what a name... ) "Momma mia" worms (cirratulid worms) available from IPSF. These worms, if introduced to a tank tend to get more of the food or habitat and reduce the chaetopterid populations.

Hope these options help.