I pulled these out of my 120 tonight. Anyone know what they are and if they are bad? I found these two and a smaller one. One is red and the other is white/grey. Here is a video. 
What are these? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter mnmuskyman2011
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I pulled these out of my 120 tonight. Anyone know what they are and if they are bad? I found these two and a smaller one. One is red and the other is white/grey. Here is a video.
How on earth did you catch them, let alone see them in your 120?
OP
OP
They were right at the front glass. I used a syringe and sucked them up.
Wow, well best I can say is they look like some type of worm and I have heard of beneficial worms in reefs, not that I am saying that is what you have but it may be possible. I hope someone can ID them for you!
ok, maybe I'm blind here but I can't see anything...:squint:
OP
OP
It is a video Ray, click on it to play it.
still hard to tell...u got PM
OP
OP
Okay I think I found out what they are. Polychate epitokes, or baby bristle worms. I found this on Reef Central. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1327861
those pics on RC looks easier to ID. BTW I hate ALL bristleworms!
Kepler
Former: Koletang
Finally, someone who agrees with me on this. LOL
I've got a lot of them and don't know the best way to get them. I know people have said tweezers, but they pull back into the rock. What's the best way to get some of them out of the tank?
bigdubb
Senior Member
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- Jun 24, 2013
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I've heard of some having success with bristleworm traps. From what I've heard/read, they're not bad, so why bother?
Thanks for the info! I know they're not bad, but my population of them will soon be out of control and some of the are HUGE.
It just means they have a lot of food to eat. The population in a tank is limited to the resources available to the animal. In the case of bristleworms, that more often than not means they have plenty of food to go around. Picking up on maintenance such as sucking up detritus when you do a water change, getting a handle on not over feeding and ensuring what is being fed gets eaten by what you are trying to feed, etc. IMO feeding is a pretty big issue for people in the hobby, many feeding once a day or every other day. IMO/IME, this leads to a larger feeding and usually means more food gets wasted. Feeding several times a day with smaller amounts reduces this IMO/IME because you know the fish will eat again in the near future. Right now I'm feeding one of my QTs (holding 2 clownfish and an orchid dottyback) three times a day. Usually each fish is getting the equivalent of 5-8 pieces of mysis upwards of 3 times per day. It's just enough for them to get a slight stomach bulge and decide they are full. Granted I'm not feeding mysis exclusively, it is about the equivalent when I feed other foods like Rod's, Ova, etc. The thing to note is that I have nearly no food sitting on the bottom of the tank at any given time, and there is nothing but the fish. If I were to introduce bristleworms, the population would be very contained since they'd still eat any fish poo that they can find. My suggestion for anyone with a CRAZY number of bristleworms is to clean the tank up a bit, over time the population will decrease as the amount of food decreases.
Kyle T. I'm sure you're right about the overfeeding because I do a once a day feeding. I try to get waste when I do water changes and that works fairly well, but I haven't done anything with bristle worms and I've had the tank running for a couple of years so that's partially the problem too. I will try some of your suggestions - thanks!