bristle worms good or bad

[convictblenny]

I have a fish and invertebrate tank with alot of live rock. I have no coral. I have alot of red blue bristle worms. Are these good or bad. I have not noticed any fire worms, they just seem to be two to three inch bristle worms that only come out when I feed the tank. So are these good scavengers, or too much of a bioload for their own good? I run only the live rock/sand and skimmer as filtration.

 

[NaH2O]

I don't see any problem with bristleworms. I use them as a guage to possible overfeeding. Their population has to be supported by a food source, so by cutting back on the food source, then you'll likely see the bristleworm population cut back a bit, too. I wouldn't be too concerned about them just yet. Some folks like to remove the ones that are really long.

 

[returnofsid]

Bristleworms are great to have in your tank. There's hundreds of species and only 1 or 2 that are dangerous. Those 1 or 2 are rarely found in aquariums. Well, dangerous to corals. They're all off limits to humans. DON'T TOUCH!! They hurt. They do a great job of helping keep detritus cleaned up. As NaH2O said, they're usually a good gauge of overfeeding...or so I've heard. Although I have a 10 QT/Macro tank that I've NEVER fed...not once. It's full of pods, mysid shrimp AND Bristleworms. This tank has been set up almost a year with never a feeding.

If you do find yourself with a population explosion of find ones that are larger than you want in your tank (They can grow HUGE) there are easy ways to manage the population. Some Wrasses eat them. My 6 lined ate them like crazy before it decided to go carpet surfing. You can also take a piece of fine nylon mesh and wrap up a piece of shrimp or something in it....tie a string to it and lower it into your tank over night. In the morning, grab the string and pull it out and into a bowl of some kind. It should be full of nasty lil' bristleworms...and maybe a HUGE one or 2...lol. Keep in mind that for everyone you see, there's probably 50 more...lol

 

[theJ]

I have a bunch of babies and one that is pushing 3 inches that hitchhiked in on some rock i just bought. Ive never seen one in person (noob!), so my girlfriend and I were a little creeped out at first because they -are- creepy!! I knew what they were thanks to my trusty invert book, but still, the bigger one (Fred ) looks like a frickin sea monster!

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=bristle+worm

 

[fly guy]

I agree with the statement already made about their population being a indication of too many nutrients in the system. If you have them they are doing you a favor.

Here is a pet that i "created" a couple years ago in a well fed aggressive tank. I kept him as a pet in my sump until he managed to get into the infeed of my mag return pump.......those are 18" tongs and a 5 gallon bucket...

anyways......that isnt really why i posted........i posted because i am wondering if that scorpion in your avatar is yours theJ??

 

[theJ]

ahh i wish,but no its not. I took this shot at the seattle aquarium last summer. they have a handful of those guys. If you are ever in the area, definately a fun place to go, here are some more shots: http://thejerrod.com/coppermine/thumbnails.php?album=11

 

[class clown]

flyguy thats creepy dude.