Bristle worms

[1bigstud]

Well I always knew I had bristle worms in my tank, but last night I went to check on my seahare and noticed quite a few large ones. Any one have opinions on britsle worms???

Yay? or
Nay?


Rick.

[G1GY]

Detritus eaters. Good to have. :)

[untamed]

[quote]Any one have opinions on britsle worms???[\quote]

I think everyone has opinions about bristle worms. You're not going to get a definitive answer on that one.

[McNasty]

love em and leave em be :)

[Samw]

I have an overpopulation of them. The ones that I have eat zoos and probably other corals. I watched them eat a huge patch of my zoos as they got hungrier due to my reduced feedings in my tank.

http://www.bluforman.com/intertidal/test/species/speciesPages/groups/worms/Eurythoecomplantapage.htm

"The orange fireworm likes to eat corals, molluscs and other worms. "

http://www.aquariumfish.com/aquariumfish/detail.aspx?aid=2762&cid=3791&search=

"A more deadly bristleworm, and possibly the cause of the damage to your gorgonian, is the fireworm (Hermodice carunculata). This species attains a maximum length in excess of 12 inches and has powerful jaws that they use to feed on gorgonians, the tissues of hard corals, zoanthids, anemones, mushroom anemones, clams and fan worms. Injured cnidarians are particularly vulnerable to fireworm attack, because they release olfactory cues that attract these predators. However, these worms do not restrict their attacks to unhealthy invertebrates, as you have witnessed in your aquarium with your gorgonian. "

http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/msubpestbworm/a/aa102198.htm

"They are not selective about what they eat, but usually prey on all types of other motile (moving) and sessile (attached or stationary) invertebrates, such as corals, crustaceans, mollusks, sedentary type as well as other errant type bristleworms. "

[untamed]

Yes..yes sounds terrible...

But few people are qualified to tell the difference between the various types. Certainly, some of them could be descructive. My rule is that if you catch the worm in the act of doing something you can't live with, THEN remove it. Generally, I believe that most of them are useful critters to have around.

I have not seen a bristleworm with "jaws"... Eunicid worm, sure...but that is a VERY different looking beasty that most wouldn't consider a bristleworm. (although they could be related) If you had one of those, you wouldn't immediately think it was a bristleworm.

[Samw]

Here are some images of my worms. I used large frozen prawns as bait to attract them and then use aquatongs to catch the worms. Sometimes, I have to grab the prawn with the aquatongs because the worms would start carrying it into their cave. Then it becomes a little tug of war. I was surprised by the strength of their jaws.

http://www.hyperdream.com/samw/reef/Critters/Bristleworms/img_8512_std.jpg

I spent 3 separate nights catching the worms. This bucket of worms represents 1 night's catch and is maybe 10% or less of the worms in my 38G tank. I still have lots of worms but hopefully they have less competition amongst each other for food now.


http://www.hyperdream.com/samw/reef/Critters/Bristleworms/img_8570_std.jpg

In this night time shot, a couple of worms are eating some green zoanthids that were open during the day. The worms are hungry. Within a minute or so, the polyp where the worm's mouth was is gone and only bare rock is left where the polyp once was. I have already lost hundreds of orange eagle eye zoanthids and all of my pink zoanthids. The polyps would be opened during the day and then the next day, a whole bunch would disappear and the same repeated night by night.

http://www.hyperdream.com/samw/reef/Critters/Bristleworms/img_8526_std.jpg

Here, my poor Sharknose goby has bristleworm spikes embedded along its entire body including its mouth. It looked like it was going to die but it recovered and survived.

http://www.hyperdream.com/samw/reef/Critters/Bristleworms/img_8721_crop_std.jpg

http://www.hyperdream.com/samw/reef/Critters/Bristleworms/img_8719_crop_std.jpg

http://www.hyperdream.com/samw/reef/Critters/Bristleworms/img_8717_crop_std.jpg

http://www.hyperdream.com/samw/reef/Critters/Bristleworms/img_8718_crop_std.jpg

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Ouch.

My wife really hates bristleworms & she made me get rid of a pink brittle star because its arms looked like huge bristleworms.

They are a menace in a seahorse tank. Our pony tank was always full of bws because of the heavy feeding & the largest I caught was as thick as a pinky finger & 10" long. Tore up my whole tank to catch the bugger.

& oh, what a lovely feeling to get bristles on your finger while working in your tank, eh.

Anthony

[G1GY]

Ewwwww!

I don't have anything like that in my tank.

Those things are huge Sam.

I would not leave anything like that in there either.

[Beverly]

Sam,

That bucket of worms is one of the most disturbing pics I've seen posted here in awhile :eek:

Glad you perservered and caught so many :smile:

[i have crabs]

i dont really know how to do the quote thing but it looks like in those pics and from the fact that they ate a bunch of zoo's that you also have some fireworms and not just regular bristleworms,if corals were going missing and my goby showed up like that it would be war for shure but since most of us dont have that problem they are not anything to get excited about.,the only problem ive had is when a batch of bangaii cardinal fry got spit out earliy the worms swarmed them and ate almost all of them over a couple hours no matter how hard i tried to stop them and i ended up loosing almost all of the babys but still saved a few.

[1bigstud]

It's terrible to hear some of these horror stoires. Especially the goby and baby cardinals. Luckily I havent noticed any destructive behaviuor in my tank yet. Though I will be monitoring them for sure. Anyone have anything good to say about these worms? There must be some purpose to them besides attacking fish and eating corals. So for those of you that catch these, what do you do with them once they've been caught?

[i have crabs]

just for the record regular bristle worms are very reefsafe scavengers that clean up detritis and left over food,the problem i had was just them doing thier job just not when i wanted it done,and the problem with the goby and the corals are only from the one kind of bristle refered to as a fireworm wich is not reefsafe and should be removed and returned to the ocean via the toilet.

[untamed]

I have a red headed goby that frequently has gets "spined" as well. Mine always seems to get stuck in the eyes only. He has yet to suffer any permanent damage. Life is hard in the aquarium.

[scub steve]

i had the same problem as you all i can say it i took all the rock that did not have corals on it and dipped them in boiling water and all i can say is ill bet you are only seeing 25% of what is in there and the other things i did was get an arrow crab and a lunar wrass and they were all gone in a short while a lunar wrass is too big for your tank so i would go with a 6 line i hope this helps a bit

[rollingstones420]

How do you get bristleworms? Do they sneak in with live rock?

[StirCrazy]

How do you get bristleworms? Do they sneak in with live rock?

yes



For what its worth I have always had a tone of bristle worms, and several different types. I thought I had one big one that liked snails but never saw anything to prove it was it and not just natural snail die off (which is common)

I have never had corals/zoos/ect eaten by one unless the mentioned victim was dieing or dead already.

personally I leave all bristle worms in the tank as they are a sign of a healthy tank and if you do have a fish die for some reason they will eat it before it can contaminate your water quality..

Steve

[1bigstud]

Very interesting input.