neurolog33
New Member
How do I control them. I have hundreds in my reef tank?
brissle worms
- Thread starter neurolog33
- Start date
carrie1429
Active Member
Arrow crabs love to eat them. Also they sell bristle worm traps at the LFS, those traps catch the small ones pretty well.
nm reef
Active Member
The above methods will work.....all will help lower the populations...but why do you want to get rid of them. I've found that they serve a vital function and rarely if ever pose a problem. Some folks have been known to spend good cash just to get them!
bristle worms
bristle worms
demosthenes
Active Member
I would suggest a Bristle Worm trap. If you would, keep all of the ones you catch in some type of container like a breeder to keep them alive, and then send them to me. If you do this, I'll pay for your trouble, S+H, plus the cost of the Bristle Worm trap. So you get rid of you problem, and I pay the cost. Let me know by email, PM, or a reply to this post.
daisy
Member
you can use the search function on this site to see that bristle worms have been a common topic. Problem is that the books say they're really, really bad, when fact is, they serve an important purpose, moving around the base of your tank and eating all sorts of gunk. Unless your bristle worms are damaging other organisms in the tank, you may want to leave them alone.
Or you could share the wealth -- seems like lots of folks out there don't have our luck, and didn't happen upon these hitch-hikers.
Or you could share the wealth -- seems like lots of folks out there don't have our luck, and didn't happen upon these hitch-hikers.
adrian
Active Member
Most of them are good, they make great scavengers, although its quite possible for their populations to get out of control, especially if the tank is overfed, or there is a build up of detritus which is common when using curshed coral for the substrate. Not to say this is a bad thing, as mentioned many people pay good $ for BW, but a large population of BWs can be very unsightly. Many organims will feed on them including arrow crabs, coral banded shrimp, pseudochromis as well as many wrasses. In the case of the shrimp and crab they will actively hunt down bristles, but in time may also hunt down small slow moving or dormant fish. As mentioned the Pseudochromis can be very agressive and most of the wrasses that will put a dent in a large BW population get fairly large, and will also cosume other inverts such as hermit crabs. A 6 line would be ideal, but its size limits the number and size of the worms it can eat. ALthough if you had a 6 line that ate BWs it would help to keep the population down as it would be taking out the younger worms before they have a chance to reproduce. The best route would be to limit their food supply, and manually remove them when possible via a trap, or if possible siphon them out during water changes. HTH
steamboat1569
Member
I agree with NM and everyone else that said they are good, why get rid of them. They do good at cleaning the tank, unless you have the few species that are detrimental, which is unlikely (thousands of species strong). If they are that plentifull, let them run out of food (detrius) and it will balance out. They will keep their own numbers in check.
fishy all the time
Member
I recently put a trap in my tank, just out of curiousity. In my tank there a tiny little legs that stick out of the rocks. I am not sure what they are. They are long and fine, blue and white stripped. If I see one there are normaly 5 or more coming out of the same rock. I cant decide if they are bristle worms or something else, hence the trap. Of course I have not caught anything. I have spent lots of time trying to get tem to come out of the rock by placing shrimp on the rock but the legs just grab it and pull it in. Any ideas...sorry I cant take a picture...but they dont look like bristle worms. I did pull out something with a tweezers the other day, again for curiousity reasons. It was white, short and fat. It had little "bristles" that ran up and down both sides of the body. The body shape looked more like a grub. Any ideas. I cant seems to find pictures of either things...and I just have this need to know what they are. Thanks
joe's reefer
Member
u can stack ur rock in a cardboard box and leave it out till the bristleworms look for water at the bottoma and i have heard of people doing this and at least 200-300 worms falling out also anything else that pops out f the rock just place it in the tank.also this will take out some mantis shrimp
bang guy
Moderator
Originally posted by fishy all the time
I recently put a trap in my tank, just out of curiousity. In my tank there a tiny little legs that stick out of the rocks. I am not sure what they are. They are long and fine, blue and white stripped. If I see one there are normaly 5 or more coming out of the same rock.
They are small Brittle Stars.
fishy all the time
Member
Looks like I am a proud mom...of several stars