bristle worm

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D27spanky

how can I get rid of my bristle worms I have 2 that are in my tank and they are over 12 inches long and I am scared for my brains and clams
 
Do you have any tweezers. Wait till lights out, when you see them slowly reach in and crab them. They're fast so try not to disturb anything if you can help it. I had a nano reef years ago that was loaded with large bristles and that's how I got rid of them. The small ones you don't have to worry about, they can be good janitors, detritous and such.
 
They don't bother things.

I know that opinions vary on this, but to me, the fear of bristleworms stems from the "ewwww, WORMS" feeling more than fact.

Bristleworms haven't been seen to bother anything, only clean up dead things or leftover food and are part of nature's cleanup crew.

They also help keep your sandbed clean.

Unless you have a complete infestation of them (like, when the lights go out, they're ALL OVER your sandbed, hundreds of them) I'd leave them alone and let them do their job :D
 
I am with Lisa on this, they don't seem to hurt anything in my tanks and I have several that are large like yours plus many smaller ones.
 
You could get a six line or four line wrasse, or even a coral banded shrimp, mine do a great job of controlling the population.
 
Sometimes if they are smal enough I use a turkey baster, don't tell the wife though :lol:

I have tons in my refugium and I find them fascinating! I remove my sun corals for a couple of days every week and place them in my refugium for target feeding and love watching them roam around for scraps. I actually took a few pictures tonight.
 
Looks to me like the one on the left is a fire and the one on the right is a bristle. If you're trying to get a 12" bristle worm, a six line won't do a thing, he'll be way to small to try and take it. Personally, I'm with Lisa and most everyone else, bristleworms are great, there's nothing wrong with them, it's their cousin the fire worm that always gives them a bad rep.
 
Thank all of you. I always thought that they was good but people keep telling me that I have to get them out that they will eat my brains and other corals like that and I don't want to be loosing nothing. To much hard work in it.

OH shoot what is up with the fire worm cause mine looks like those in that pic. I will try to get a pic of him I did get a hold of him the other nite and lost him havn't seen him since think I maybe scared him would have scared me big tweezer grab me like that
 
Actually, they're both bristleworms.. the distinct coloration goes away as they get larger. The difference between a bristleworm and a fireworm has more to do with the head structure than coloration or overall appearance. Fireworms are so rare in home aquariums that 99% of what we see are one of the handful of common 'bristleworms'. That's not "99 of 100 worms are bristleworms," but "99 of 100 tanks have only bristleworms."
 
You can try this to remove them if they are bothering you. IMO I would leave them in.

Take some nylons, (just the foot cut off of a pair of pantyhose). Put food in it and tie the end closed. Put it in your tank after lights out and wait. The worms will come out for the food and crawl over the nylons. When covered or the "big one" is on it quickly lift the nylon out of the tank.

This method does work and was a recommendation on seahorses.org a few years back.
 
I hate them. wrasses, dottybacks and arrow crabs only eat babies.
you can take the rock and put it in a bowl of water covering only 1/2 the rock. When they start to stress out for lack of air they will come out, grab them with tweezers, or if only part way, coax it out by dipping it and then lifting the rock so the worm wants to go into the water. if you break it you will have 2 worms.
you can also coax it out with a little lemon juice on the tail end still in the rock.
Option 2:
Pour non-sugar soda water on your rock, over a bowl of tank water. Everything alive will crawl out or jump off.
collect the pods with a net and put them back in your tank before they die.

be sure to rinse your rock with ro water before re-adding it to the tank.
this method removes mantis too.
 
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