Good worms or bad?

[MikeP]

I have several of these worms living in the sand of a tank I set up to hold rock and sand while setting up my new tank. My new tank is almost ready and just to be sure before I go and put everything in I wanted to know if these worms are safe?

Thanks



They live in some 'live sand' I got from someone. I planned on using it to seed the sand of the new tank.

[justinl]

looks like bristleworms to me. does it look like one of these (A)?

http://www.seaslugforum.net/images/030246comb.JPG

if so, bristles are no harm. they just eat detritus and stuff. like part of your CUC. just don't touch them because they sting. remove any that are over a foot long. very few actually eat corals like zoos, and all the stories ive heard of coral eating bristleworms involved a worm well over a foot lopng.

[marie]

Most worms are detrivores and are harmless. If they were in the sand bed then they are probably fine

Now if you find one camping out on a coral and the coral is disappearing then it is time to panic

[MikeP]

Yeah I figured they were a type of bristle worm. I lost a colony of zoos to a white bristle worm once so the red ones worried me a bit. Most of them are quite small. I was just concerned about adding the sand to my reef tank, the tank they are in now only has LR so I didn't know if they would do any damage to a reef. So they get up to a foot long eh? I hope I never see one that big.

Thanks for the info