Bristle Worms - Page 3

tims · 05-23-2006, 06:41 AM

frfom the coloring of his bistles it looks alot redder to me.. might be my eye or the picture.

adam82 · 05-23-2006, 07:59 AM

its pink in the middle and gets darker as you move out along the sides and has white bristles along each side. i think its preety cool looking. but if they are bad i need to know so i can find a way to get them out.

jenajet · 05-24-2006, 07:58 AM

Just wanted to add I have used the trap for bristleworms and wanted to say dont waste your money. I think the whole time I used it I caught 1 worm. Maybe I just was unlucky tho.

adam82 · 05-24-2006, 03:22 PM

yea i know i tried a trap and he is too big for it.

Fly Guy · 05-24-2006, 06:15 PM

I found this guy the other day breaking down one of my tanks. It came out of the rock that used to be in a tank with two lions and little maintenance. For size reference he is in a 5 gallon bucket and those are 15" forceps.
I u sed to play the bristleworm game all the time. It is a waste of time unless you just simply enjoy it. Get your nutrient import export in line and all you will be left with is a worm population that is healthy. That is a bristleworm, not a fireworm in your pic adam.
If you do want to catch him its not all that hard, you just need to not feed your tank anything for a week or two and then put something stinky in there in the middle of the night. Take a red flashlight and long forceps. He will be there if your stealthy.

ChrisPrusha · 05-25-2006, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fly Guy

I found this guy the other day breaking down one of my tanks. It came out of the rock that used to be in a tank with two lions and little maintenance. For size reference he is in a 5 gallon bucket and those are 15" forceps.
I u sed to play the bristleworm game all the time. It is a waste of time unless you just simply enjoy it. Get your nutrient import export in line and all you will be left with is a worm population that is healthy. That is a bristleworm, not a fireworm in your pic adam.
If you do want to catch him its not all that hard, you just need to not feed your tank anything for a week or two and then put something stinky in there in the middle of the night. Take a red flashlight and long forceps. He will be there if your stealthy.

I have half a dozen of those guys in my 20H. I assumed they were big bristles (and not fireworms) simply because they didn't bother anyone.

Adam, do you have any firefish in your tank?

adam82 · 05-26-2006, 12:01 PM

thanks fly guy. if they arent going to hurt anything then i will leave them no biggie

chris- i had a purple firefish and a yellow wrasse but both have died. why do you ask?

ChrisPrusha · 05-26-2006, 12:23 PM

Adam,

I don't if this is an urban legend, but I have heard that firefish "lock" themselves into place at night with their fins, and bristles have been known to go to town on them while they are locked in place.

Again, I don't know whether that is fact or fiction...just something I have heard from a few sources. It seems like bunk to me, but you never know.

Ikaria · 05-26-2006, 01:12 PM

I have seen decorator crabs eat them.

adam82 · 05-26-2006, 03:10 PM

thanks everyone for the help. i finally found that it is i fireworm and some info on it.

Feeding Behavior
Fireworms are voracious predators that feed on soft and hard corals, anemones, and small crustaceans. It will engulf the last few centimeters of the tip of a branching coral, such as Acropora cervicornis (Staghorn coral), in its inflated pharynx and remove the coral tissue from that portion of the skeleton. The worm will remain 5-10 minutes at each branch tip, visiting several, and the branches attacked are apparent by their white ends.

The effects of predation on certain groups can be substantial. Witman (1988) calculated that tissue predation by this worm on Milleporid Hydrocorals (firecoral) exposed 12.9 cm² per 1 m² per day of skeleton to algal colonization.

Although H. carunculata prefers the tissue of Cnidarians, it will readily accept and thrive on alternative foods in captivity. These include: squid, clam, shrimp, krill, mysid shrimp, mussel, etc.

Predators may include the Cone snail, Conus cedonulli.

ziggy222 · 07-01-2006, 11:20 PM

arrow crabs rip them up and eat them.coralbanded shrimp,6line wrass,most psudochromis,some hawkfish.i'll warn you though,alot of these things have down sides also.research the worm predator before you buy it.some things will also kill your tunicates,featherdusters,other members of your cleaning crew.the big worms can be found under lr laying in your substrate and remove with tongs.those are the ones you wanna remove so they don't hurt your fish.small ones will help clean your tank,but i hate them all.

anitad · 07-04-2006, 08:59 PM

My beautiful clam was eaten from the inside/out by bristle worms, they started @ the foot & worked their way into the clam, within a couple days it was dead.

ChrisPrusha · 07-04-2006, 09:00 PM

I suspect the bristleworms were only eating dead tissue.

Regardless, I am very sorry for your loss.

three90s&125sump · 07-05-2006, 04:01 AM

I would opt for the coral banded shrimp. They are alot cleaner than a fish.

jenajet · 07-05-2006, 05:56 AM

You don't have other shrimp do you? Cb's will fight and may kill other shrimp.