i dont really know how to do the quote thing but it looks like in those pics and from the fact that they ate a bunch of zoo's that you also have some fireworms and not just regular bristleworms,if corals were going missing and my goby showed up like that it would be war for shure but since most of us dont have that problem they are not anything to get excited about.,the only problem ive had is when a batch of bangaii cardinal fry got spit out earliy the worms swarmed them and ate almost all of them over a couple hours no matter how hard i tried to stop them and i ended up loosing almost all of the babys but still saved a few.

It's terrible to hear some of these horror stoires. Especially the goby and baby cardinals. Luckily I havent noticed any destructive behaviuor in my tank yet. Though I will be monitoring them for sure. Anyone have anything good to say about these worms? There must be some purpose to them besides attacking fish and eating corals. So for those of you that catch these, what do you do with them once they've been caught?

just for the record regular bristle worms are very reefsafe scavengers that clean up detritis and left over food,the problem i had was just them doing thier job just not when i wanted it done,and the problem with the goby and the corals are only from the one kind of bristle refered to as a fireworm wich is not reefsafe and should be removed and returned to the ocean via the toilet.

I have a red headed goby that frequently has gets "spined" as well. Mine always seems to get stuck in the eyes only. He has yet to suffer any permanent damage. Life is hard in the aquarium.

i had the same problem as you all i can say it i took all the rock that did not have corals on it and dipped them in boiling water and all i can say is ill bet you are only seeing 25% of what is in there and the other things i did was get an arrow crab and a lunar wrass and they were all gone in a short while a lunar wrass is too big for your tank so i would go with a 6 line i hope this helps a bit

How do you get bristleworms? Do they sneak in with live rock?

yes



For what its worth I have always had a tone of bristle worms, and several different types. I thought I had one big one that liked snails but never saw anything to prove it was it and not just natural snail die off (which is common)

I have never had corals/zoos/ect eaten by one unless the mentioned victim was dieing or dead already.

personally I leave all bristle worms in the tank as they are a sign of a healthy tank and if you do have a fish die for some reason they will eat it before it can contaminate your water quality..

Steve

Very interesting input.