How big can Bristle worms get?

[Neuahda]

How big do they get? and I have read that they can be harmful and that they can be helpful. Which is it?

[512148048]

bristle worms are fine in most peoples book its the fire worms you need to watch out for i know once they get big enough they will hunt fish and other animals as well but bristle worms are just another clean up crew that could really burn you... i also remember pulling our 1' long ones out of my 35 after it was set up for 3 years

[Neuahda]

what do the fire worms look like? I think those might be the ones I have

[Jeremiah]

Do they look like this? If so they are fine. They are great detrius cleaners... Just watch out when you pick up rocks, the little bristles sting a little.

[HFG]

Whats the diff between bristol and fire worms? I thought it was the same thing under two different common names.

[Jeremiah]

Fireworms are bristleworms. There are several different types of bristle worms from what I have read. Also, according to many people I have talked to and from what I have read there are a few types of bristles that are harmful, but they are very rare. If you have the ones like in the above picture that are orange/red in color with a metalic spot/stripe in the middle area they are fine.

[Skipponator]

My population has dramatically decreased which I am happy about, but tonight I cleaned my spraybar and there was on in there that was 1/4" wide, chubby feller, his spikes were out in full force and did not look happy, but he was introduced to the biffy

-Skip

[trodder]

I got a near 3' that coils up in one of my rocks and will come out at night most the time or when I feed a lot of mysis shrimp.... he is EVIL looking!! He is a blue /rainbow metallic colored... pretty cool but evil.

[ReefLuvR]

Great pic Jeremiah. Makes it look HUGE!

[Jeremiah]

Originally Posted by ReefLuvR

Great pic Jeremiah. Makes it look HUGE!

pic is from Melv's reef. ID section..


I have so many of these. Hundreds and hundreds all over. Every rock I pick up there is oneor more underneath. I think they are great. They always devour any leftover food on the bottom of the tank.

[trodder]

If anyone needs one like in the pic above.... just let me know I can get a bunch of little ones real easy.... they are all over my Chaetomorpha. I can just pluck away until a desired quantity is met.... however I doubt there is a tank out there that with live rock in it that does not already have some in it... if you don't give it time cuz either you just have not seen them yet or live rock was not so very live when it was installed... hehe

[the_colonel]

You want to know how big worms can get, check this out:

http://www.oregonreef.com/sub_worm.htm

[ofblong]

man someone beat me to the oregon reef one. 7feet man thats just huge. to the person above who posted theres was 1/4" wide how long was it? 1/4" wide is quite wide for the avg sized bristleworm. The fireworm I had was 1/2" wide at 6" long. it was over a foot long and 1" wide by time the guy I sold it to got it out of his main reef tank (which he assured me he was going to put it in a species only tank not a reef tank otherwise I wouldnt have sold it to him). it was pure red and very scary looking. first time I saw the thing was when I was looking for my emerald crab. scared the crap out of me cause it was just so huge.ill see if I can find the pic of it.

[ofblong]

k lets see if this works

img of bristleworm when I sold it.



Link to where I posted it on rc.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=263499

[512148048]

psssst thats a fire worm