Bristle worms

[Paul B]

A while ago I added a Shrimp/gobi combination and just today they moved to a home at the back corner of the tank under my overflow skimmer.
Anyway they are in a place where food never gets to so I shot some pellets near them. In less than a minute the entire corner of the tank extending about 5" both ways was a maze of large 6" bristleworms. I knew I had a bunch of them but I never knew I had so many. They were crawling all over the shrimp and gobi who didn't seem to mind.
If anything dies in this tank it wil be gone in minutes. Great scavengers, and I will try to get a better picture.
I would imagine the worms are a larger percentage of the livestock than my fish.
Very cool.

 

[TanksNStuff]

I love shining my phone's led camera light on my tank at night to spot all the bristle worms in my tank. I have a few that are around 5" long that I know of.

They are great scavengers!

 

[harthag12]

looks like my old tank, I used to intentionally drop pellets right outside the rock where I knew they lived, especially loved when I had company over and I could show them my worms.

 

[SHLUZER]

Are they totally harmless?

 

[TanksNStuff]

Debateable. Some people say they can kill small fish when they get very large... but others say they are only scavengers and will eat just about anything (after it's already dead) so when you see it eating a fish, it's likely it was only eating what was already dead.

I have some pretty big ones and I've watched them crawl right over snails, fighting conchs, and even small amphipods. They seem pretty harmless as far as I can tell. Never seen them show any interest in corals either, dead nor alive.

 

[The_Codfather]

It's Fire worms you have to look out for http://www.njreefers.org/showthread...ristle-fire-worm-With-Pics&highlight=FIREWORM

 

[Paul B]

Are they totally harmless?​

The ones without the guns are.
I have never seen them hurt anything that is living, but anything dead will disappear in a few minutes.