Originally Posted by
seamandrew
http:///forum/post/3215996
Yeah, those are bristleworms in your picture Coffeejunkie...as long as you have a Fish only tank with live rock don't worry about them. But if you have coral or inverts such as clams/scallops, these bristleworms can be a serious problem. There are fish who love to eat them, I believe the royal dottyback is one of them, but be forewarned, I had one of them until just about a month ago and they can be rather territorial.
There are some tales of these worms crawling inside a clam and eating it from the inside out, but I have 3 clams, some different gorgonians and many other corals, and I haven't had an problems with bristle worms. They are awesome CUC members, I had a red firefish die in my tank and i couldn't get to it in the rocks but i could see at night severeal worms coming out to clean it up and by morning it was pretty much gone. I also see the worms out at night cleaning the clam shells off. They are detritus eaters, they dont care about living tissue. There are types of worm that can be very harmful to any tank and one of those are the Eunicid worms/Bobbet worms. They can get MUCH larger than your ordinary Bristle worm and can be predatory on small fish. They're also kind of ugly... There are also coral eating bristle worms but they are not so common either and are a different color. They are mostly a silver color with white bristles and at the base of each bunch of bristles you'll see a red band.
The bristles aren't that painful. I get them in my figers a lot and its no worse than a small splinter of wood or little metal shaving. Pull it out and alls well.
As for ways to control the population, I've seen my Coral Banded Shrimp munch on them from time to time. I wish now that i had bought a Pair of CBS instead of just one. Oh well.
