Crap! I have bristleworms!!!

[Abarnswell]

I spotted two bristleworms in my tank last night!!! Where, oh where, did they come from? Are they gonna hurt my Xenia and Zoos and Polyps??

What do I do??? I know there are traps for them. My LFS has some.

 

[drty811]

IMO i leave mine alone. they are good debris eaters and if anything dies in the rock work where you cant see they will do a great job of getting rid of it. but i do extract the larger ones, 3" and above. they come out wehn i feed the tank, then i take a pair of long tweezers and pull them out. they are in all LR, its impossible to get rid of them all. six line wrasses eat them. they wont hurt your corals they are reef safe.

 

[Carman34L]

I would not worry about them, they help with cleaning stuff up in your tank, detrius, extra food etc.... leave them alone..

 

[Jennie]

Think of them as a part of your clean up crew that just happened to be FREE

 

[skipm]

I agree to leave them alone but I do want to say that if you decide to remove them do not handle them with your bare hands, their bristle hurt like crazy if they get in your skin.

 

[smoke eater]

If you don't want them I take them :mrgreen:

 

[Abarnswell]

If you don't want them I take them

Sure, smoke eater. You can have them! If I can just catch them, that is. They don't seem to want to be caught.

All right, guys. I'll leave them in there. It's just that I have heard so many warnings about bristle worms. Mine are less than 1/2 an inch long -- little guys (so far).

 

[drty811]

april,

another way that i have used to rid my tank of some of the larger ones is, by placing an empty snail shell with a piece of mysis placed in it, near where you have seen the little guys. they will go for the food and then get inside the shell....then i pull the shell. its a free trap thats already in your tank.

 

[Abarnswell]

they will go for the food and then get inside the shell....then i pull the shell

That's sort of what happened with the one I did catch. I just happened to see him dart inside an empty hermit shell late one night, while I was trolling with a flashlight, so I pulled the shell out. I put the shell in a shallow dish with tank water and watched the worm for a few days, trying to just get a good look at him. I even fed him some frozen shrimp. He would stick his neck out just far enough to grab the shrimp and then he'd dart back into the shell. Fascinating. I had to keep him in the microwave so my cat (who is addicted to salt water, weird cat) wouldn't eat him. This morning I caught him completely out of the shell, so I removed the shell. He's been royally pissed off after that, because now he doesn't have anywhere to hide.

Now I have to decide what to do with him: either put him back in my tank or, uh... euthanize him. :shock: He can't live in the microwave forever.

 

[drty811]

flush him.....they love toilets :evil: :twisted:

 

[Abarnswell]

flush him.....they love toilets

You are SO evil. But wouldn't that be putting the metropolitan sewage system at great risk? :lol:

 

[drty811]

lol you might be rite :idea: it might grow to super size. new update just seen....forteen foot bristle worm found in sewers. worm killed supersized gator. :mrgreen:

 

[Abarnswell]

Well, that's what it brought to mind ... all those movies about giant alligators in the sewage systems. I wouldn't want to be responsible for such a catastrophe like that. ;-)

Maybe I'll just let the cat eat it after all. (just kidding!!!) I know their bristles sting. No touchie!!

Great, now I'm going to have nightmares about a 14-foot bristleworm tonight. Great! Thanks!

 

[drty811]

:mrgreen: sorry if i brought nightmares to you :twisted:

 

[Jennie]

Just don't think about a 14' bristleworm coming up the pipes from the sewer :shock:

Seriously, I've got one that I know is 8+ , stretched out I'm sure its larger, but so far I think it is innocent of any illegal acts against my little box of nature. Unless you KNOW it is going rogue, they should be fine.