[j_man]

Anyone sell the good forms of Polychaete annelid. I also need some cerith and nassarius. I have a deep sand bed with very little life. Anyone sell a seed kit?

[j_man]

where is the best place to buy some cerith and nassarius

[Steven Pro]

Check out http://www.inlandaquatics.com/

[Reefland]

You can also check out www.ipsf.com for good sand bed life. For snails, just about any livestock retailer offers them.

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by j_man

Anyone sell the good forms of Polychaete annelid. I also need some cerith and nassarius. I have a deep sand bed with very little life. Anyone sell a seed kit?

The phylum is Annelida, the class is Polychaeta. Of the 9,000 different species of annelids, approximately 8,000 are polychaetes. Annelid means segmented worm and polychaete means many bristles.

Most polychaetes, with a few notable exceptions, are beneficial scavengers. Both IPSF and Inland Aquatics offer baby bristleworms, actually Eurythoe complanata. Both of them also offer what they call "spaghetti worms." Both IPSF and Inland Aquatics describe their spaghetti worms as terrebilids. Both are probably wrong. These worms are more likely cirratulids. It really doesn't matter because they, too, are beneficial but in a different way. Both the spaghetti worms and the bristleworms will multiply rapidly in your aquarium so you don't need to order very many of either. If you start out with six 1" long bristleworms, you will have six 4" long bristleworms within six weeks and within six months you will have a few dozen in assorted sizes. The spaghetti worms are expensive. I started with six of these but within about a year I had at least three dozen.

The so-called spaghetti worms bury themselves in the upper layer of the sand bed with just their buccal tentacles showing. They feed on whatever drifts their way. The bristleworms hide during the daytime and scavenge at night. They are very fast and will retract with lightning speed back into their hiding place if you turn on the lights. They will sometimes come out if all you have on are a couple of actinics.

Those are the only two polychaetes that I know of that are available individually at any of the online vendors. However, whenever you purchase any true live sand there is a good posibility that you will get a few small polychaetes in the sand. And good live rock should contain a lot of nice wormy critters of various species.

I purchased sand bed "critters" from IPSF, Inland Aquatics and Reeftopia. Reeftopia has the best prices if you need a bunch of stuff or if you can split your order with a friend. They offer free overnight shipping on orders of $120 or more. They are the best place for ceriths and Nassarius vibex.

You may wish to take into consideration your location when deciding where to place your order. IPSF is in Hawaii and they ship everything via FedEx "overnight," which actually takes two days. IPSF is in Indiana and Reeftopia is in the Florida Keys. I was satisfied with all three places but I have no plans to order from IPSF again because I can get most of the same stuff from either Reeftopia or Inland Aquatics.

[j_man]

Would any of you fine folks be able to part with some? I can trade you a pastel pink candy frag, or a small cabbage leather frag.

[Ninong]

Part with what? You asked about Ceriths, Nassarius and polychaetes.

Most ordinary hobbyists will not get involved in shipping any animals because of the hassles involved in shipping and the very great expense of overnight shipping.

You may be able to find the snails at your LFS. The various worms are usually only available online. I doubt if I could catch any of my bristleworms if I tried. They are much too fast and, besides, they only come out at night and retract instantly if the lights come on.

The only thing I have that I could possibly part with would be a few of the so-called spaghetti worms because they are sedentary. But I wouldn't even think of shipping them.

Depending on where you live, you may be able to find a hobbyist in your local area who could help you out.

[Samper]

www.ricksreefs.com

[Callous1]

Originally Posted by Samper

www.ricksreefs.com

I just tried to email him and the email bounced, could not deliver. Is he still in biz??

Update:
RickReef must have a bug in the email forwarding cuz even though i got the MAILER-DAEMON undeliverable, they actually received my email. They got back to me very quickly actually