Bristle worm infestation?

[reeferaddict]

That's just a regular ole bristle worm... I used to worry too but they eat detritus and are actually desirable scavengers by most accounts. I have some in my system and have never noticed them munching on corals like I have reef crabs... If you must get rid of them, put a red or blue light in at night & pick 'em out with tweezers or if you prefer the natural cure an arrow crab would be their natural predator and quite quickly will deplete the population. Arrow crabs are reef safe more often than not. It's not that I haven't read about bristleworm nightmares - just that the "mainstream" way of thinking these days seems to be to leave them as they're harmless unless you have them in plague proportions. Be careful if you handle them... the bristles punture the skin, break off and are next to impossible to extract...