Worms!!! ???

[volitanking]

at night when i shine a flashlight in my tank i see worms moving along the pices of live rock they look like earth worms but skinny. i dont really think it was one of them but there was a worm creature in the sponge of my overflo box and it was rough feeling and liikd like it had a mouth on it. can anyone tell me what my worms are and if there good or bad????

[titanfan]

Worms... yuhm good!! Free fish food!! They also can eat detrius, dying organisms, and help keep the sand bed clean. IMO they are good unless they seem to get over the foot size. Also I would be careful about touching them like that. Some are called bristle worms. Those bristles on them can be painful.

[Fly Guy]

I used to have 2 lions and an eel in a 46 gallon tank. Yeah, now that i know better that is ridiculous....but anyway. Due to the massive feeding that those fish required I ended up with a massive worm infestation. 4-8 inch bristleworms were a daily finding and i even ended up with a huge eunicid(spelling??) worm that would suck my crabs right out of their shells. When i first started dealing with the problem i could pick up any hadful size sectioin of sand and gravel and pull out 50-100 bristleworms of varying sizes. I could list several other "cool" looking worms that i thought were really neat until i started figuring out different negative effects of each. My conclusion with them now is this. A certain bristleworm population is a healthy thing. They help eat and dissipate detritus. But any bottom feeding worm over a few inches long needs to DIE. Grab a red flashlight (or cover your flashlight with red plastic)in the middle of the night and pick those suckers out. They can hardly notice the red light and they wont run for cover. Also, if you need to move your base rocks for any reason, take the opportunity to look around, you will find some of the biggest ones when you do so. It becomes kind of a fun game. A 6 line wrasse will eat them. Get your fish population and feedings ion check and good luck.

-b

Not all worms can be bad though. Ive got a few peanut worms that are somewhere around a foiot long and i think very cool creatures. I havent noticed anything negative from them yet, but i ams starting to notice LOTS of smaller ones so at some point my opinion might change on them as well.

The pictures i attached are of that super bad ass eunicid worm that would kill my crabs and eat everything but their legs. He was around 15 inches long and could swim WAY more agile that my eel. Some guy on here had one that was 7 feet long and was eating his corals. I forget who it was but he posted a pic of a "smaller" 5 footer that he found.

[washowi]

Bristle Worm most likely. They are good

[Campbell17]

i've got these little ones that are about as big around as a coat hanger and are either white or black with a gray stripe and come out at night. it looks like thay are eating but at the end of them something comes out and looks like a fan coming out of the end and it goes back in it will do this till i turn the lights on then it runs in its hole real quick any idea on what this is

[gwen_o_lyn]

Volitanking- Clean out ur PM box- Here is the message I couldn't send ya. I'll post it here and everyone can join in the discussion

Originally Posted by volitanking

its going to be a 10g reef tank. i plan on filling it with LR. and from what i gather from sevral sources plenty of LR and good circulation should be all i need as long as i do frequent water changes i shouldent need a skimmer right? im new to reef but i have now had 2 fowlr setups and never have had anything disatrous happen "knock on wood" but i want to learn as much about reef keeping as possible before i put a bunch of corals in a tank and they die. you know..

~DANNO~

I personally wouldnt run a tank without a skimmer. Maybe under 5 gallons without one, but I'd never do a 5 gal tank.
I am setting up a 12 nano for the nano buildoff and I bought the AquaC Remora for it which is a highly rated skimmer as far as hang on the back (HOB) skimmers go. You can get away with not having a skimmer, but I think most people end up with problems. You can't export as much as being imported and then nutrients build up, hair algae grows, corals die, and u get mad. I would look into getting a skimmer, but that's just my opinion.

[volitanking]

i touched it it didnt sting me. i pulled it out of the filter sponge. i know what a bristle worms are. ive been stung it hurts. but im not sure if it was the same thing i see at night.they look smooth like earth worms i can see a red vaine in em and theres alot of em.

[gwen_o_lyn]

can u get a picture?

[volitanking]

my camera is crappy