Bristleworm control?

[aquavista99]

I seem to have a healthy population of bristleworms in my basement reef tank and would like to control (not eliminate) them by adding a reef safe fish that can keep the numbers in check. I was thinking about adding a six line wrasse to help control my bristleworm population.

Based on personal experience, does anyone recommend another reef safe fish that will feed on bristleworms as well?
 

[slandis3]

I have a six line and he dosent seem to eat anything but fourmla 1 and 2. I heard a fox face will eat them but im not sure. Ask joel he would know. prat of my problem was over feeding. i started feeding less fodd and my bristleworms and shrank half in population.

[Joel]

I'm not sure if there is one correct answer. I have heard that the 6 line helps but I've never had one that ate bristle worms. I have had arrow crabs eat them but on occasion they would eat things I didn't want them to like zoo or star polyps. The neon or arabian dotty back (P. aldrabrensis or P. Dutoidi) are claimed to eat them too. I had an aldrabrensis in a 90 reef tank and never saw any signifigant populations. I removed the larger ones but let it keep the babies under controll. I'm sure that there are many fish that people have had good luck with keeping bristle worms under controll that didn't didn't work for the next person. I belive that if a fish has a more prefered or easier item to feed on that it will concentrate on it and ignore what we hoped they would eat. Kind-of like copperban butterfly or pepperming shrimp for aptasia controll, works great for one person and doesn't work at all for the next. Probibly the most correct answer is to try and decrease what  ever it is in the aquarium they are feeding on. Normally (but not allways) if there is a large population of anything, there is a large amount of "something" they are feeding on. Bristle worms are detrivores, normally large populations thrive in an envirment that has lots of food present, I doubt that your tanks are over fed or dirty though. What is being generated in your aquarium that they are feeding on might be a good starting point to lower thier numbers.

[verper]

I know this doesn't make any sense, but I saw a decline in bristleworms after introducing mini serpent stars into my nanocube.  Don't know if is because they compete for the remaining food or the stars snare and eat the bristles.  I had alot of bristles at one time and when I broke the cube down a couple of weeks ago there were only a few.  Not an overly large population of serpent stars, but there were more of them than bristles.

[hayes112]

I know you asked about fish but I will throw this out there for what its worth. If you want to manualy remove them I have heard that putting some type of food i.e mysis , brine...whatever into a pice of pantyhose and ppput into your tank the bristleworms will try and get it and in the process they will get stuck in the pantyhose mesh and can then be dispossed of. I have been wanting to try this, but I dont have pantyhose lying around. It makes sense to me but i am only working with a small tanks so if you have a large one I dont know how effective it would be.

[ohioreef]

If you're so inclined, they make bristleworm traps.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod_Display.cfm?pcatid=3960&Ntt=trap&Ntk=All&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Np=1&N=2004&Nty=1

[micki]

I got one of those traps, save your money...  They do NOTHING!

[Secondgen]

I agree the store bought traps are a rip off.

[aquavista99]

My system in the basement is for SPS corals only, with oversized filtration and bi-weekly water changes. The only thing I feed the system is calcium......no food is added whatsoever. I also have large populations of tiny brittle/serpent stars and lots of pods. I have some snails that reproduce in the system as well, but they are tiny and maintain small populations.

I would prefer to find a predator to eat some of the bristleworms  because I am always to kind to nature (which means I prefer not to kill them myself by removing them from the reef). Please let me know if anyone  would like a dozen or so to feed a fish. They are easy to catch and help stir the sand as well.

[aquavista99]

Okay, I attached a picture taken from above the reef last night and I circled all the bristleworms near the coral in the picture. Am I overreacting or is the population considered normal for people who to keep them around as a natural means of keeping the aquarium clean?




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[slandis3]

are they all small like thoses or are some of them bigger?

[aquavista99]

I have a few larger ones in my sump, but you will only see them if you look under the live rocks. In my upstairs reef, I have sand worms that measure up to  8 inches long.....they came with the live sand from the ocean and are considered good for the reef. I don't think I would let the bristleworms get large  because of the damage they could do later on.

[slandis3]

I found a 3" long bristleworm in my tank once.I didnt know they got that big.

[aquavista99]

Maybe I am overreacting??? Here is another picture of corals with a few bristleworms out in the open. Problem or no?
Again, no food is added to this reef and the water quality is not an issue here.


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[slandis3]

could be. If your not feeding the tank there has to be something they are eating. I asked Joel about these worm a while ago. He told me there has to be something there feeding on to keep them alive. You just have to find out what. My problem was to much food in the water. I was overfeeding my tank. But thats not a problem with yours. The may have came in a rock or coral you bought and spread through out the tank. As long as theres not a ton of them i wouldnt worrie about it. I have been keeping an eye on my population and they seem to be somewhat under controll now. but i am leaving some of them in there to help with cleaning the tank

[aquavista99]

See pic below for the stuff I pull out of this reef daily, without adding any food to the system and no fish....just calcium added.  Maybe the bristleworms are out in the open because food is limited or maybe they feed off the stuff the corals live on (zooplankton or small water-borne animals?)

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[slandis3]

IM not sure, you would have to ask Joel on that one. When i feed my fish i will see some of the worms come out the hide shortly after that.  Is that an Aqua c skimmer? if so do you like it? I am thinking of running a 240 on my new tank. not sure yet

[ohioreef]

What are your corals eating if you don't feed anything? Even most photosynthetic corals filter nutrients from the water.

[aquavista99]

What are your corals eating if you don't feed anything? Even most photosynthetic corals filter nutrients from the water.

There are a lot of sps keepers who  do not feed corals (except for adding calcium daily), whereas others have success with adding food to the system. Many photosynthetic corals derive a majority of their energy from feeding and nutrient absorption and I suspect my corals are thriving  on zoo plankton and other small water-borne animals, like pods, who reproduce in my system daily and other tiny animals I can't see unless under microscope. Again, without fish, the pods and other tiny animals will thrive and feed the reef by reproduction, etc. I have good SPS growth rates and my corals are getting brighter and more colorful as each week passes.

My upstairs reef is filled with fish, yet I do not specially feed the sps corals in that system as well. I suspect fish droppings add a lot of nutrients to the water for the corals to feed on as well. 


SPS corals usually reject phytopankton as a food source, but I suspose I have some small water-borne plants/algae floating around as a food source as well.

[ohioreef]

Hmmmm.....interesting. I wasn't questioning your methods, just curious. I don't directly feed my corals, either. I've always figured there were some nutrients in the water from fish feeding, fish poo, etc.

[micki]

Here are a few pics of  worm I got out of my reef tank.  I put it in my fuge.  A few months or so later I found it had crawled out of my fuge and was on the floor of my sump room!

[verper]

I think you see more bristleworms because there is no predator in your tank down stairs.  They are out grazing on the LR during the day instead of nightime because they can.  I saw this happen in my tank.

[aquavista99]

I think you see more bristleworms because there is no predator in your tank down stairs.  They are out grazing on the LR during the day instead of nightime because they can.  I saw this happen in my tank.

I agree. I cleaned the tank today and I was only able to remove about 15 bristleworms. In hindsight, I think my population of bristleworms is limited at best, and since no predators remain in the system, they graze on the LR in the open just as you suggested. I doubt I will add a predator fish to the system now because I want my pods to continue to thrive, and most likely, a six line wrasse or another fish will probably go after the pods and leave the less desireable bristleworms alone.

[aquavista99]

Micki-those worms look scary!!! Thanks for sharing.  The ones I removed today were tiny and mostly red. Click on the link below to see pictures of a 7 foot worm removed from a large reef aquarium.

http://www.oregonreef.com/sub_worm.htm

[micki]

Yep, I've seen that link before.  Glad I got mine out before it got to that size! 

[aquavista99]

Is that an Aqua c skimmer? if so do you like it? I am thinking of running a 240 on my new tank. not sure yet

Yes, it is an Aqua C EV 240 with an Iwaki MD40RLT pump. I love it and highly recommend it. I will be using this same skimmer for my 180g upgrade. I have an AquaC EV 180 with a Mag 7 on another tank. If you purchase an AquaC, go with an external pump, like Iwaki for maxium performance.



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[aquavista99]

 Facts about Bristleworms per Aquarium Corals by Eric Borneman

Bristleworms are primarily beneficial detritus eaters, but larger specimens of a few genera may be carnivorous (and would need to be removed). Bristleworms are also highly reproductive, are regenerative and may reach high densities in the aquarium. This is not necessarily problematic because their larvae provide an important food source for corals and other filter-feeding invertebrates.

Smaller bristleworm specimens can be controlled biologically. The Red Sea dottyback fishes seem fond of the smaller worms [see the author's book on page 396 for a complete list of other fish that feed on bristleworms as well].  

No reef is ever likely to be completely free of bristleworms, nor are they usually harmful to corals.