Bristle worms, bristle worms Oh God, bristleworms

[imawindowlickr]

So my tank is about 3 months old, started very, very slowly, live sand for 2 weeks, then some baserock, after 3 weeks I had a nice diatom explosion, I got a yellowtail damsel, and some tricolor hermits and some Nerite and nassiarius snails. Somewhere I got bristleworms, not just a few, i have a count of at least 100 in my 12 gallon tank. A few are just monsters, the largest being about 4 inches long extended. So i got a coral banded shrimp. I think it may be broken. No, really, my shrimp works like a lazy stateworker. I think he just tries to look busy when he knows i'm watching. He lets the worms crawl right in front of him. Maybe he is on strike, who knows. So I am at a loss on what to do, will their number reduce when the food supply drops low? Help!!!!!! I have my fish, a pretty little green urchin, a small brittle starfish and a rock flower anemone who is trying very hard to split, and my lazy coral banded shrimp. I don't want any of them to be wormfood. Anything I can do?

[aquawolf]

Welcome to TRT!!!

Bristleworms are actually a very good member of your clean up crew. They are very effective detritus eaters and can get into places to clean that no other critter can. In this case they are actually telling you something, and that is there is too much food in the tank. Their population will self regulate based on the amount of food available, so if you are seeing a lot of them then they have a lot of food to eat. I would cut back on your feedings and you should see the population start to decrease some. Bristleworms do not kill healthy animals in your tank, but they will rapidly consume the dead ones for you.

The coral banded may not have been the best choice to eat them, and you may need to keep an eye on it as they can become agressive at times. Some have been known to kill sleeping fish.

On a side note, 4 inches is actually pretty small for a bristleworm. They should be fine in your system, but if you see one that is approaching 2 feet long I would definitely remove it.

[imawindowlickr]

Why thank you so much!

[aquawolf]

You are most welcome.

[gabranth17]

wait i heard that when bristleworms run low on food they turn to eat shrimp and fish is that true?? oh and by the way dude if u ever worry about the worms just make a little trap to get some of them out, dont take them all though

[Reeftanker3295]

Not really, and most bristleworms are much too small to do damage to any kind of fish or shrimp unless they swim into it. I had bristleworms when something died in my tank and after a week or two they dissapeared.