How to kill bristle worms - help!

[jmaneyapanda]

Soarin';189614 wrote: I used to believe the hype about bristles being "reef safe" too, until I saw a large bristle worm eat my new peppermint shrimp. The shrimp was really healthy, and there was a large bristle that lived at the top of the cave (in a hole in the rock) where the shrimp hung out. The bristle was big enough that he took food away from the shrimp (scallop, etc).

I thought it was funny to see the worm steal food from the shrimp, and it had been a few days since I fed the shrimp (worm) so I saw the worm coming out looking for food but it I thought it was no big deal. Then the shrimp molted and the next morning at 5 am I saw the shrimp jammed into the hole at the top of his cave. The worm didn't bother to wait and take the food from the shrimp, he took the (now shell-less) shrimp instead! The shrimp never hit the floor -- the other bristles joined the feast and by 5pm that day the shrimp was totally eaten.

Now I prefer to limit my clean-up crew to things that don't get big enough to hunt their own meals. No matter what anyone else thinks.

I found that if you don't feed the tank for a few days the worms get hungry enough to go for any meat in a trap that you care to rig up.

I do think bristles can do a valuable service, but there's plenty of evidence to let you know that they are not totally harmless.

I think your case ais a rather unique and atypical situation. Nonetheless, there is ceertainly no need for any aquarists to eliminate the typical bristleworsm as standard practice. They are in likely every tank that has live rock, so the frequency of freak occurances, such as this, are absolutele miniscule minorities.

 

[soarin']

I've got some pink zoas in that tank that are disappearing. They don't look sick or stressed at all, but it seems each day that I look there are fewer and fewer. Not coincidentally, they seem to be declining faster more recently while I haven't fed the tank as much (while it recovers from the last crash).

I'm not going to say that bristles are dangerous, I think they are mostly fine, but I will be trapping out a few just in case.

 

[soarin']

On the flip side, bristles can be very helpful, too -- if something dies, they will be all over it, and eat it so that it doesn't decay and pollute the water.

that alone can prevent a tank crash and can be very valuable. I wouldn't stress about them at all, but it might be nice to take out the big ones once in a while.

I don't think that you can ever really get rid of them, even if you tried -- they can reproduce quickly, and have amazing survival capabilities.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Soarin';189684 wrote: I've got some pink zoas in that tank that are disappearing. They don't look sick or stressed at all, but it seems each day that I look there are fewer and fewer. Not coincidentally, they seem to be declining faster more recently while I haven't fed the tank as much (while it recovers from the last crash).

I'm not going to say that bristles are dangerous, I think they are mostly fine, but I will be trapping out a few just in case.

I think you have more than bristleworms....

 

[soarin']

jmaneyapanda;189713 wrote: I think you have more than bristleworms....

That may well be, but it's only a 6 gallon pico, and most of the rock started off as dead rock. I will put a trap up and we'll see what ends up in it!

 

[gwen_o_lyn]

Soarin';189684 wrote: I've got some pink zoas in that tank that are disappearing. They don't look sick or stressed at all, but it seems each day that I look there are fewer and fewer. Not coincidentally, they seem to be declining faster more recently while I haven't fed the tank as much (while it recovers from the last crash).

Zoas seem to be a weird coral when it comes to growth in the aquarium. I find they either grow like kudzoo, kinda just hang out with very little or no growth, or either just dwindle away like you described above.

As far as bristles, I agree with JPanda. They are wonderful scavangers and I will go to great lengths to save a bristleworm in danger. I was noticing the other day that I haven't seen a bristle in forever and I'm guessing my trigger cleaned them up. I do have crazy amounts of mini brittlestars and asterinas though.

 

[christy29]

WhenI had my 12g Nano I had a bunch of BW. I went to Petland in Kennesaw & bought a trap. It is a long plastic green tube. In the center it has a place for bait & the worms crawl into the ends & can't get back out. I got rid of a lot of them that way. They really didn't do any damage to my corals or anything I just had so many of them. I did try the arrow crab for about a month then it had to go. It was tried to eat my clownfish. I would try the trap though it seemed to work the best. All you have to do is set it down in the sand at night then remove it in the morning.