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Originally Posted by adam82
the reason im asking is because it might just be coincidence but when i had a large bristle worm in my tank i didnt have aptasia.
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They will be beneficial to your tank, if for no other reason than they eat fallen food items and they jostle the individual granules of the sand bed if your system is so equipped. They improve carbon processing in the system, and effect much of the perturbation and interstitial circulation of the upper layers of the
sand beds. I doubt there is any real correlation between the presence of
Aiptasia and the population of bristle worms unless you have a confirmed population of
Hemodice carunculata or
Eurythoe complanata. These two genera are of the family
Amphinomidae and are responsible for the majority of the damage seen associated with bristle worm consumption of corals and the related cnidarians like
Aptasia. These taxa comprise only a very very small minority of the brisatleworms seen in tropical
marine aquaria and rarely show up at all. Even when they do, their bright orange coloration makes identification easy. The rest of the genera of bristleworms do not consume the live flesh of corals. They
are good at eating anything that is dead though, so if you see bristleworms on a coral, it is most likely either eating dead tissue or is one of the Caribbean or Indonesian spp. of Fireworms listed above.
See Rob Toonan's article about errant polycheates for more info on which ones to look for that are bad...
http://www.reefs.org/library/aquariu...98/0198_2.html
HTH
