A Polychaete Word of Caution

[Sebae again]

You might be able to keep them under control or eliminate them with a fish.I had a orchid dottyback that ate all my bristle worms.

[naesco]

Zoaelite
I am sorry to see that you are suffering losses especially to a reefer that takes the time to specialize as you have.

But, I think your are giving the bristle worm a bad rap. They are scavengers not predators on coral and zoas. They are an exceptionally benefical scavenger and harmless to reef animals.

I can think of two possibilities.
1. Your zoas are dying from some disease and the bristle worms as scavengers are cleaning up the dead tisse. That is the job they were doing that night.
2. That you do not have brisstle worms but you have bearded fireworms (hermodice carunculata which are predators and love zoas. Thankfully they are very rarely seen in the hobby.

[marie]

Originally Posted by naesco

Zoaelite
I am sorry to see that you are suffering losses especially to a reefer that takes the time to specialize as you have.

But, I think your are giving the bristle worm a bad rap. They are scavengers not predators on coral and zoas. They are an exceptionally benefical scavenger and harmless to reef animals.

I can think of two possibilities.
1. Your zoas are dying from some disease and the bristle worms as scavengers are cleaning up the dead tisse. That is the job they were doing that night.
2. That you do not have brisstle worms but you have bearded fireworms (hermodice carunculata which are predators and love zoas. Thankfully they are very rarely seen in the hobby.

I had a fireworm once, they do love zoos. I finally spotted it one day with it's mouth completely engulfing the head of a paly....unfortunately I was on the phone at the time and the only thing within my reach was a wooden skewer.


Once you've seen one the differences are obvious, they are very hairy and the bristles break off very easy

[Zoaelite]

I will grab photos tonight when the lights are off to see If anyone can ID them as fireworms, so far so good in the new tank.

Naesco is it possible that the bristle worms are simply irritating the zoas to death? I'm not talking like 2-3 worms per colony @ night I'm talking like 10-12 and a few large ones. The bristles of the worm break of really easy and man do they hurt!

Sebae again I have seen my wrasses eat them during the day but the numbers are far to high to be biologically controlled. Besides all my fish sleep at night, the worms only come out when its pitch black so we have timing issues .

[Seamazter]

If your dipping the colonies to kill the worms, remember that some do die inside the rock and do not come out.
This will increase your bio-load for quite a long time.
I did this once by drying out alot of rocks and having a huge ammonia swing after adding back the dried out rock again.
Even if one stays inside and dies, your going to see it cause a spike.

[naesco]

Originally Posted by zoaElite

I will grab photos tonight when the lights are off to see If anyone can ID them as fireworms, so far so good in the new tank.

Naesco is it possible that the bristle worms are simply irritating the zoas to death? I'm not talking like 2-3 worms per colony @ night I'm talking like 10-12 and a few large ones. The bristles of the worm break of really easy and man do they hurt!

Sebae again I have seen my wrasses eat them during the day but the numbers are far to high to be biologically controlled. Besides all my fish sleep at night, the worms only come out when its pitch black so we have timing issues .

Zoaelite all of us that have established tanks will have tonnes of bristle worms. They can devour a small dead fish overnight with no trace. What attracts them is dead, decaying tissue or matter.
Most of us have a zoa here and there and if one of them gets sick and dies it is another lost coral with no explanation.
But a specialty tank like yours that is covered in stunning beautiful coloured zoas would allow a disease to spread easily.
Yes it is possible that dead, decaying zoa that attract bristle worms could also cause inadvertent bristle damage to some healthy polyps.
But, the problem is the determining the cause of death and doing something to stop it and not the bristle worms.

If it is disease you will have to be strong and remove most of the polyps in each colony leaving only the guaranteed healthy ones and keep them as far apart from each other.
Look for a chemical or drug solution that you could use as a dip.
Does anyone have any ideas?
If I can find something I will let you know. sorry!

[Zoaelite]

No problem at all you have been a great help! I dipped them in iodine dip while doing the transfer and the polyps that were in distress are looking a little better.

Testing the water right now then I will take photos.

[hillegom]

have you seen any zoa eating nudibranchs ?

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by naesco

Zoaelite all of us that have established tanks will have tonnes of bristle worms. They can devour a small dead fish overnight with no trace. What attracts them is dead, decaying tissue or matter.
Most of us have a zoa here and there and if one of them gets sick and dies it is another lost coral with no explanation.
But a specialty tank like yours that is covered in stunning beautiful coloured zoas would allow a disease to spread easily.
Yes it is possible that dead, decaying zoa that attract bristle worms could also cause inadvertent bristle damage to some healthy polyps.
But, the problem is the determining the cause of death and doing something to stop it and not the bristle worms.

If it is disease you will have to be strong and remove most of the polyps in each colony leaving only the guaranteed healthy ones and keep them as far apart from each other.
Look for a chemical or drug solution that you could use as a dip.
Does anyone have any ideas?
If I can find something I will let you know. sorry!

Naesco, you know I am a suported of bristle worms and like tyou there are many benifits to havign them, but there are different types of worms and there is one type that feeds on polyps which zoos are. so it is possable he has 1 or 2 zoo eating worms. I had one very large zoo eater which I just lived with as my tank was a SPS tank and the zoos I did have were ugly.

Steve

[Zoaelite]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

Naesco, you know I am a suported of bristle worms and like tyou there are many benifits to havign them, but there are different types of worms and there is one type that feeds on polyps which zoos are. so it is possable he has 1 or 2 zoo eating worms. I had one very large zoo eater which I just lived with as my tank was a SPS tank and the zoos I did have were ugly.

Steve

Didn't snap photos last night as I was a to tired but after a quick glance I appear to have some diversity in the group. None of them look like fireworms, at least from what I can see from google photos. The zoa tank seems to be doing much better, possibly from the dip itself possibly from lack of irritators.