bristleworms are no longer welcome.

[smokinreefer]

i dont care how beneficial you think these guys are...they must go!

hehe, atleast the fat sucker who left all his bristles in my finger!

the bad part of it is, the bristles are kinda brittle, so if you try to pluck them out to aggressively, they snap and leave little shards in your skin!

ouch!

[EmilyB]

Wimp...

Try blistered fingers and reactine for a while....gotta love those guys....

[Troy F]

try soaking your hand in vinegar, should disolve the bristles

[Jack]

Man, I hear ya. After I took down a 5" DSB in my old tank is felt like I gave a stinging nettle an indian burn! Not a fun experience. Too bad I didn't know the vinager trick, doh!

[smokinreefer]

i knew ssomeone would know a cool remedy!
thanks troy.

[Aquattro]

Shao, for future reference, don't play with bristleworms...leave them in the sand!!

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by smokinreefer

i dont care how beneficial you think these guys are...they must go!

hehe, atleast the fat sucker who left all his bristles in my finger!

Was rearranging the rock in our 7 gal today to make the tank ready for the seahorse we're about to buy. While I knew we had a large bristleworm in there, didn't know how large until I found its hiding place under one particular rock. It was freakin' HUGE

I decided to let the creature be as it has never hurt anything in that tank in over 7 months, so I doubt it'll harm anything in the future. Plus, I didn't want to get into any kind of tug of war with it. I'm sure it would have won by stinging me with its bristles, but I'd have then killed a useful hitchhiker for no good reason.

Now if it was a mithrax crab, well, that'd be another story completely

Bristleworms are good for your reef, so leave alone, please

[Jack]

Bristleworms are good for your reef, so leave alone, please

I think shao was kidding!

[Bob I]

Bristleworms are good for your reef, so leave alone, please

You are of course welcome to your feelings, but they are my worms, and I will treat them as I please, please.

As I have said in another thread, I would normally leave them be, but my 20G reef has too many. I used to shine a light in there after dark, and was disgusted with the sheer numbers. There were at least 100 of them. In my 50 I never see any. The difference was I have two big fat Cleaner Shrimp in there. The shrimp either eat them, or scare them so they stay in the sand where they belong. To make a short story long, I picked up a couple of small shrimp for $15.00 each, which I think is reasonable. Now when I shine a light in there I see far fewer worms.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by rcipema

There were at least 100 of them.

Bob, that is good and it is a sign of a tank that will handle a fish dieing with no problems as the worms will consume it befor it can do any dammage.

Originally Posted by rcipema

In my 50 I never see any. The difference was I have two big fat Cleaner Shrimp in there. The shrimp either eat them, or scare them so they stay in the sand where they belong.

you know.. I have 2 cleaner shrimp and 3 peppermint shrimp in my 94 gal, I have seen them all eat worms but I still have hundreds of worms at night (or if I feed the tank) the difference being I ran the tank for about 3 months and encouraged worm growth befor I put the shrimp in.. I agree that the shrimp eat the worms but I do not thing that they could wipe out a large established worm stock with only 2.. I think it is more likely that you put the shrimp in befor the worms were established.

just for the record I can put some fish food in my tank and with in 3 min I cannot count the amount of worms that appear.. but any other time you have to look rather hard to find one.. I have also put a large oyster (bought from the store) in the tank and the next morning the shell was clean and I have never been able to detect any nitrates or anthing.. as a cleaner/scavanger I don't think anything will compare to the efficiency of bristle worms and unless you have one of the preditory types (which are very very rare in home aquaria) there growth should be encouraged.

Bob, I know you will type some smart a$$ reply to this as you think the world would be a better place with out my opinions so ignore it as this is for other people that might be interested in moderen ideas/methodology not the ideas that were good in the 60's

Oh I hid a few spelling mistakes in here see how long it takes you to find them.

Steve