I noticed one night that my reef tank had bristle worms, so I asked my lfs how to get rid of them. (other than tweezers) He said to use the pantyhose trick. I tried it and it didn't work. It attracted them but because they couldn't get inside, they quickly lost interest and left. So I decided to modify it to make them think they were actuslly going into rock. What you do is get a small piece of that very soft, lightweight, porous, white decoration rock from your lfs. Use a hacksaw and cut it in half. I used a dremel tool to hollow out the center of both halfs so that when you put it back together, the middle of the rock is hollow. It should be big enough to hold a good sized piece of fresh raw shrimp from your grocery store. Then drill a bunch of holes from the center of the rock to the outside. Get a rubberband that is big enough to solidly hold the pieces together, and tie a piece of fishing line to it. Then once your lights go out, put the shrimp inside and seal it up with the rubberband. Lower it into the tank in an area you have seen the little suckers, go to bed and when you get up pull it out open it and pick them out with tweezers. I caught 14 in 6 nights. Actually when you put it in, sit and watch it with a flash light and you can watch them come a running. Have fun.

aren't bristle worms beneficial to a sandbed? why remove them?

Yes they are good for working up the sand, but if left unchecked they will burro into anemones and some corals, killing them. My lfs guy had some in one of his display tanks. He fgot in a load of fish and put a very small wrasse in there and a couple of days later it was gone, he picked up a rock and there was a very fat bristle worm underneath. You do the math.

thanx-
that's pretty clever.... your own design?? i bought one of those stupid tubular-trap-things and it didn't work.
thanx again....

-mister fiend

Yes, I designed it myself. Now that I've built the better {mousetrap}, do you think the world will beat a path to my door?

Dear JTOliver,

Were you able to identify the species of bristleworm? If not, can you describe?



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Cheers,
Rob
New York City

I don't know what kind they were but they were 1-3 inches long fairly thin and pinkish red in color with a row of bristles running down each side, why?

Just curious. There's only one species that's dangerous to corals and others... the others are excellent detritovores. Have you read about them?
http://biogeek.ucdavis.edu/bristleworm.html



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Cheers,
Rob
New York City

If any of you feel bristleworms are bad enough they need to be removed, please don't kill them. Bag them up and mail them to me... I'll pay shipping... I'm serious. (Contact me at reefland@yahoo.com)

These are amoung the best detritivors available to us. I have hundreds of them in my tank. They do not eat corals, anemones, clams, snails or anything else. Heck they don't even have jaws that can take a bite out anything.

The odds of you having the one or two species that are harmful is pretty rare. I'll be glad to take them off your hands.



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-Rich

http://www.geekopolis.com/reef/reefland

yes bristleworms eat things that are dead. This is why they get a bad rap. There are very few species that accually catch live prey and the get over a foot long and usually don't make it to the home aquariums. Brislte worms being bad is old like going bare bottom

Oh no! I have hundreds of them! What should i do?

I actualy saw them breeding the other night, releasing spermataphores and the like. Was really wild to see them all come out at once.

Cap
http://www.fishroom.com

Releasing spermatophores without even using semaphores?

How rude!

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Anyway, I'll send a chilled, pre-addressed livestock shipping container (and cash fer shipping) to anybody that wants to offload their extra bristleworms without flushing them

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Cheers,
Rob
New York City