bristle worms, good or bad?
 

Just starting out a FOWLR tank, found a bristle worm on my fully cured LR. Little orange one with a black streak inside it's body (figure internal organs). I have read a few different accounts about them. What is the consensus here, good, or bad?

They tend to be a problem when they get big. More so for us, if you don't wear gloves when handling rocks in the tank. HTH

Thanks for the replies on the poll. This has helped me greatly.

Voted they are not a problem. If you were keeping corals I would say to keep an eye out (Very few species are a problem- but some will attack corals.) In a FOWLR system let them grow until they scare you with their beauty...

reply
 

I voted not a problem too, until they get big.

i vote not a prob.i found a massive 10 inch one that came with rock ,got rid of him bit scary.u wont have to many if u dont overfeed. the hairs are not too bad they dont affect my skin but might with some.

i have an 18" one in my 20.5 gallon cube....the guy leaves everything alone, will find him and night gently moving around the corals and eating the crap around the bases of them but never getting to close to cause damage to them.... one time I did watch my peppermint shrimp chase the bristle worm every where in the tank trying to get a piece of food on him haha

I have hundreds that I see and probably 1000s that I dont. I feel they are part of the clean up crew.

Thanks everyone. Looks as though I don't worry about them for now. I see lots in the tank anyways, so I'd never be rid of them anyhow.

I had a bristle worm that I just took out and I had another weird worm that came out of a rock. It was quite ugly....

if you have your hands always in your tank(s), you will hate them.

Otherwise they are harmless

The last two paragraphs of this article have some interesting things to say about bristle worms:

http://www.fishchannel.com/saltwater...us-snails.aspx

haha for everone you see their are probaly 10 to 20 you don't. I have lots and they never bother anything tho. I just went and bought a dragon wrasse i starve him for a few day and then like magic theirs a few less worms. That and if i see one out in the open I pull them out just to keep their numbers down.:lol:

If your bristle worm looks like this one its a bad one but i think all other ones are good. I pulled 4 of these out of one of my tanks one of them found a dead turbo snail and 2 of these eating it. I took those 2 out and then put the snail back in for bait and got 2 more. They are called hermodice carunculata.

Don't like the looks of that worm!
 

I really dont like the looks of them.. I usually get rid of them by taking a syringe and warming up some Lemon juice and squirt the hole they came out of. Kills them right away:twised:... Works good if you only have a few...as for a few hundred.... better buy some bulk Lemon Juice! lol!

We have tons of them in our 90 gallon reef. But we do remove the larger ones when we see them, mainly because they are bigger then our small goby. Other then that, glad to have the extra cleaners.