what the heck are these!!!

L

Lower_Level

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Jan 1, 2004
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While feeding my tank the other day i happened to look at the substrate & seen something I have never seen before. It looked like a miniature centipede. It was around 1" long, pink tip/black body, tons of white legs on both sides. Upon closer inspection there was quite a few of these little buggers crawling through the rocks.

I only see these come out when I put food in the tank & it sinks to bottom, then there everywhere. I'm not sure wether to be worried about these or not. It looks like they're helping to clean the bottom of the tank from excess food, but I just find it odd that they just appeared.

Here's some specs on my tank:

33gal
Undergravel filter with 2 301 powerheads
Liverock (about 10lbs)
2 damsels
1 Tomato clown
1 Percula clown
1 Blue Gideon Goby
1 Serpent Star


If these "centipedes" are a problem, how can I get rid of them. Any help would be appreciated!
 
bristle worms!

I have these too and have been told these are good in moderation but can over run a tank if left unchecked. I hear that arrow crabs are good for keeping them under wraps as the worms are a favorite food of theirs. I noticed just a couple 1-2 and now there are at least a dozen in my tank. I don't want to completely irradicate them as I've heard when they reproduce that the planktonic stage is good food for feather dusters (I have 2). Bristle worms are also suppose to be good for cleaning up uneatten food and stuff and keeping the tank clean.
 
One thing to keep in mind--if you're seeing tons of bristleworms, it means you are feeding way too much. Bristleworms reproduce to the amount of food available, like FW snails. If you have tons, it means there is a lot of uneaten food around.
 
Bristleworms

Lower_Level said:
While feeding my tank the other day i happened to look at the substrate & seen something I have never seen before. It looked like a miniature centipede. It was around 1" long, pink tip/black body, tons of white legs on both sides. Upon closer inspection there was quite a few of these little buggers crawling through the rocks.

I only see these come out when I put food in the tank & it sinks to bottom, then there everywhere. I'm not sure wether to be worried about these or not. It looks like they're helping to clean the bottom of the tank from excess food, but I just find it odd that they just appeared.

Here's some specs on my tank:

33gal
Undergravel filter with 2 301 powerheads
Liverock (about 10lbs)
2 damsels
1 Tomato clown
1 Percula clown
1 Blue Gideon Goby
1 Serpent Star


If these "centipedes" are a problem, how can I get rid of them. Any help would be appreciated!
Click to expand...
Bristleworms are not so good.Many are carnivorous.Sounds like you have a typical bristleworm,which grow really fast and can get to 24" or more.The bigger they are the more damage they do,they eat whatever they can find.REMOVE them from the tank,they attack coral and sometimes other animals(anemones are a good example). Try going to this web site www.netpets.com/fish/reference/reefref/bristle.html They explain how to get rid of them. You should always read fisrt before you go to a forum!!!!
 
Bristleworms are NOT a bad thing. You'll get both opinions, on here...as you can already see.

OrionGirl is right though...if you're seeing ALOT of them, frequently, you're overfeeding your tank. Try feeding every other day, in smaller portions.

It is true, that some Bristleworms can cause damage to corals, but 99% of the time, they're content to eat leftovers.

I have quite a few, in my 200gal. tank, and I've even seen one of those that's over 8" long. They're not bad guys.

Dont try to kill them all. But, do keep a watch on things. If you have corals and start to see some damage to them, then you can start doing something to get rid of the worms. They wont bother fish, unless the fish is already dead, laying on the bottom, in each reach of the worms.
 
I have a few small ones and one 24" one... sure i don't want the big one in there, but they arn't easy to get out... don't worry unless they are very large... then worry.
 
Most Bristleworms scavange, meaning they eat anything thats already dead or dying, or anything they walk over like corals. VERY few are preditory and hunt food, but large ones tend to eat bigger food then small ones.
 
I had quite alot of bristle worms that I got from a new piece of LR I bought and in the rock was a few very large fireworms. I was scared and even was convinced that one of them killed a peppermint shrimp I had. After waging war on them and trying to rid my tank of all of the fireworms (and the larger bristleworms) I started to watch them more closely and noticed that they do not do anything except eat the leftover food they find. My clowns can sleep totally motionless for a minute next to a large worm and the most that happens is the worm hides if the clown moves the slightest bit. Mine have had a massive amount of chances to eat any of the pets in my tank and have never even acted like they would consider attacking anything. Now I dont have any corals yet though, so this is only in regards to killing fish shrimp etc... and I am not saying that it is 100% that your worms will act like mine do, but just saying dont jump to conclusions and dont base your decision off of one persons opinion (unless you have alot of respect for that person specifically). Most of the people that are more experienced seem to say they are safe as long as you watch any corals and the worms dont get very large. I agree with most of the posts, leave them in there and just keep an eye on the bigger ones and make sure no corals (if you have any) end up being eaten.

Rick
 
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