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Bristle worms

Paul B

Paul B

NJRC Member
Bristle worms, a few years ago these things were a sign of doom. We thought they would eat our corals, fish, TVs and I Pods.
Sometimes my reef is full of tiny ones and other times like now there are only a few giant ones. I just fed the tank with blackworms, mysis and pellets and I was watching the fish eat.
Did you ever see the original 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea starring Kirk Douglas? Ok maybe you are too young but there was this squid about a hundred feet long and it was eating this submarine.
That is a close cousin to the bristle worms I have in my tank.
There was a few pellets on the gravel and I noticed some movement, from 4 different places. All of a sudden four giant tentacles as large as my couch, Ok maybe a little smaller, emerged from the rock and battled each other for this one pellet. I mean they were fighting so hard that two pictures fell off my wall. It was scary. One worm finally swallowed the pellet in one gulp and the other three retreated but the scowl on their faces would scare the yellow off a canary. No really. :eek: I just thought I would share this with you.
 
radiata

radiata

NJRC Member
In Defense of Bristleworms...

I manage to get nailed by a bristleworm at least twice a month. That said - I still want them in my tanks. I have some that are a good 4 or 5 inches long. They are very effective at cleaning up carrion. Some hobbyists think they attack clams, but they are only cleaning up after a clam has been abused by the aquarist and is on the way to the clam's next life. Same for corals. Ever have a fish virtually disappear in your tank? It was dieing, swam into the rock work for the last time, and the bristleworms took care of it - and without the ammonia spike usually associated with a decaying animal. I subscribe to Ron Shimek's thesis that crustaceans don't belong in a reef tank, so I have no hermit crabs in my system to clean up any carrion (hermits typically exist on mud flats, not reefs). The bristleworms are very effective at what they do. I go as far as to feed pellet fish food to my refugiums so my bristleworms (and nasarrius) get enough to eat.

And, the reproduction processes of bristleworms release plankton into your tank for your filter feeders to consume.

What's not to like?
 
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