WormS?!?

[scbauer]

Ive been adding some plants to my tank the past week, and all my levels are still fine. But I have these catipiller looking worms moving on the rock. They are orange and white, almost like a long caripiller. What are these and are they okay for the tank?Please let me know so that if I have to I can do a water change to get them out.

Steve

 

[drty811]

a water change wont get rid of them... they sound like bristle worms, cant really tell without pics but if they are they are fine...

 

[Master Er]

I was about to say the same thing...bristle worms, I have the same thing except that mine is pink...fairly safe...I dont knowif there are bad bristle worms though. I tried to capture one using fine tip prongs with the lights out and just the moonlights...they move quite fast and are sensitive to even the slightest shadow movement.

 

[scbauer]

Here is a pic

 

[drty811]

to blury to tell what it is....kind of looks like a bristle....

 

[Master Er]

A little too blury to see anything....I am curious to see it, the one (i've only seen one so far) in my tank is quite difficult to take a picture of but it looks really neat and all I've seen is a part of it.

drty811- In what colors do they come in? And what color is the bad type?

 

[scbauer]

They are about 1" to 4"s long... ive been paying attention to it a lot more.. and there are about 10 of them in the rock... trying to get a better resolution cam. Thanks

 

[Master Er]

10? Thats a lot....makes me wonder if I have more than one. I actually havent seen the length of the one in my tank, only 1/4" of it. I noticed tiny white droppings which at first I thought were eggs or something then 3 days ago I saw where the droppings came from....I never knew I had one till then.

 

[scbauer]

Kinda is really making me wonder... they are almost identical to catipillars... fuzzy pinkish orangish white....

 

[Master Er]

Yup. They are fine...what I have is fuzzy and pink and I did inquire about that before, its in one of the threads. I was told that it was safe and nothing to worry about. Just an extra pooper for the tank.

 

[incysor]

Look like this? If so it's probably your garden variety bristle worm. They're mostly harmless. Although you don't want to touch one.

http://www.chesapeakebay.net/polychaete.htm

http://www.reefs.org/library/article/r_toonen12.html

B

 

[Master Er]

The picture shows my bristle worm clearly. Thanks incysor.

Scbauer- is that what you have in your tank?

 

[drty811]

in my tanks i try to take out the larger ones.....smaller one i leave, they clean up the excess food. harmless. i think mostly that color pimk and white...there is another one though, got to find the post though....

 

[scbauer]

That is exactly the way that they look!! This clears up my worry... Thanks for the info incysor!