So, I took the advice of some people on here, and went and bought a red lense for my flashlight. I turned the tank light off, tonight, waited about a half hour, and then went to work looking with the red light. HOLY CRAP! There are THOUSANDS of tiny "crusteacean" looking things all over the place...on the bed, the live rock, everywhere. This is amazing! I've heard people say that they've seen things with the red light, but I never thought it'd be like this. It's like a whole new, separate world living in my tank. Just thought I'd post this...lol. It's 11pm, my girlfriend is in bed, pissed that I wont come to bed, and here I am...sitting on the floor in front of my tank, with the red light, mouth dropped open, like a little kid.
I'm FREAKIN' out...
- Thread starter AW2EOD
- Start date
Just wait till you get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. You'll think 'I'll only look at the tank for a min. My girlfriend won't miss me.' Next thing you know it will be time to get ready for work.
I tried that "red lense" thing last night. Saw a bristle worm that had to have been 6 inches long. I've never seen it before and there it was. Very cool.
Continuing the red lense "technique"...I found a bristle worm (aprox. 3" long), in the live rock, last night. Is this a problem? Are they peaceful scavengers or can they hurt the tank mates?
I love my bristleworms. They freak my grandkids out. They are the best free scavangers you can get. Those bristles are their defense mechanism so don't get to close.
Bristle worms only get to be a problem when thier big, then they start to eat fish and inverts, much like green brittle stars (they start off as scavengers, but once they get big enough to catch fish they will)
I had a couple of 16" long bristleworms.. Scared the crap outta me when I saw it. It was munching on my sand swifting star after it got stuck on the powerhead and died. Besides that incident I never saw it again. Well, up untill my tank crashed and everything in it died.. 
But yeah, I wouldn't worry about them. I never had any problems..
But yeah, I wouldn't worry about them. I never had any problems..
I find this quiet hard to believe. If an animal is a scavenger, then it is design by evolution to be a scavenger. Of course, in captivity an animal may change its feeding habits but...
In order for the worm to become a "fish predator", it will need to be pretty fast, even if the fish is sleeping... It will have to learn how to bend and release itself from the substrate... It needs strong jaws to pierce through the fish scales and eat its flesh, etc....
Sleeping fish usually hover over the water column; they do not close their eyes and can probably swim away if disturbed.
So, the bottom line is: Almost all species of bristle worm that you encounter in a reef tank are safe.
The only concern would be that if a bristle worm gets too large, it could hurt a fish with its bristles. I wonder if some of the reports of fish killed by bristle worm are really caused by this kind of "accident".
Bob Fenner, a leading expert aquarist has an interesting discussion on this topic. He insist that the probability is very low that a bristle worm will harm ANY LIVING animal in the reef tank!
Bristle Worm FAQ