tell me this is not a bristle worm

zap800

Member
i was just looking in my tank tonight,admiring my new shimp and all of a sudden this little son of a gun pops out of the rock for a sec. i had my cammera handy so i took a quick pick.sorry it is a little out of focus but i didnt have time to adjust it for such a quick shot. the thing is about an inch long
 

zap800

Member
will this thing take over my tank? or make babies like rabbits? if its ok then why do so many people complain about them? other than being butt ugly.
 

belothsurf

Member
Ok, it's not a bristle worm. (That's what you asked us to do ).:D After i first got my tank, I researched the worms and read a number of different articles, and they all said they were beneficial. The bad thing about them, is that if you touch them, their bristles stick in your skin, just like a cactus, and hurt a little. the only ones that are undersireable, mainly because they nip on corals, are Fireworms, and are a deep red, with much larger bristles. I have a ton of regular bristleworms, and they come out whenever I feed, almost immediately. The big ones, and some are at least six inches, will snag a shrimp pellet and drag it back into the rocks. I thinks it's neat to watch.:happyfish
 

zap800

Member
ok i was just curious about that. i mean they sell traps for the things so i was figuring they were a bad thing. what do they clean anyway? my rocks look pretty dirty. thats why i got a shimp and some hermits.
 

belothsurf

Member
Yeah, I've seen those. And it is a common misconception that bristleworms are bad, so they are capitalizing on that, probably. But, if your tank is overun with them, you would want to get rid of some, just for appearance sake. But like Kip said, they live off food, or it's derivatives, and if you have too many, you are probably overfeeding, and after cutting back on feeding, they would die off and wouldn't reproduce as much. So don't worry about them. I would be more worried if you didn't have them. But, the first time I saw one, a few days after I put my lr in my tank, I was...."what the heck is that??!!!! I didn't buy that!!!!...Can't be good!!!!! So I researched the heck out of this "monster", and found out they were good. Then I was.."cool, I've got a bristleworm".:D I was so proud.......:D
 

zap800

Member
the funny thing about this is this rock was in a holding tank for about 2 months and then i got it. plus i have had in my tank for about 3 weeks,maybe more. so i was really surprised when i saw it.
 

bobbyzat

Member
I think i am just starting to get a few as well. They look blueish/purple to me, but ive only seen them under actinics, which probably are messing with my eyes. But the good thing is they are spreading off of my live rock, and onto my base rock, which is hyrock.
 

lilredcmc

Member
i am sorry but i can not agree that they are beneficial. my hubby and i were rearranging some rock and 3 bristleworms were literally ganging up on my brittle star. i have had this star since day one of my tank and here lately he had starting losing pieces of his arms and we couldn't figure out why. all the water paras were fine. then i read that as a defense they will break off parts of their arms to get away. now we know why, the worms were eating him. so now whenever we get new rock, we make sure there are no worms before we add it.
 

johnny5

Member
IME bristle worms only eat things that are dead or dying. Im no expert but I had some sick star polyps that hitchhiked on a piece of LR and they cleaned only the dead parts and the rest grew back. I thought at first they were eating (got really bummed and mad) them but they didn't touch them again after the white/rotting parts were eaten. I think they helped the gsp's from dying completely. Ive got tons and tons of bristle worms and I have yet to see anything negative.
I've never had a brittle star tho. :notsure:
 
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