Baby bristleworms ...

Jojo92 · May 23, 2021

Hey all!

so a few times in my tank I’ve seen one purple-ish adult bristleworm. I saw they can be a valuable CUC and my tank was real new when I first noticed him (about 5/6 months old) so I made the decision to leave him in as they didn’t seem to be harmful at the time. Now I’ve noticed what seem to be baby bristleworms coming out of one corner in particular in my sand bed. They normally come up a few inches in the glass... and then go back into the sand bed. Should I be worried? I’ve only seen it 3 or 4 times so far.... but should I be proactive about this?

I got a video of one these “baby” ones the other day. I haven’t seen the adult in a while, but I’m 99% sure it’s a bristleworm.

Jojo92 · May 23, 2021

I couldn’t get the vid to load so I screenshot the vid lol. But pretty sure it’s a baby bristleworm.

Gtinnel · May 23, 2021

In the video it is not close enough to make out what type of worm. Anyway you could get a close up picture of it.

Jojo92 · May 23, 2021

Gtinnel said:
In the video it is not close enough to make out what type of worm. Anyway you could get a close up picture of it.

I’ve only seen them maybe three or four times and they go back into the sand bed pretty quickly after leaving it, that’s the only time my phone was close by enough to catch it on camera lol

I’m pretty confident in saying it’s a baby bristleworm. I’ve def seen the adult. Lol I’m just not sure if this might be a good time to try getting rid of them.. do they tend to become bad problems? or is this something that the experienced say to not worry about with a newer tank?

Jojo92 · May 23, 2021

Jojo92 said:
I’ve only seen them maybe three or four times and they go back into the sand bed pretty quickly after leaving it, that’s the only time my phone was close by enough to catch it on camera lol

I’m pretty confident in saying it’s a baby bristleworm. I’ve def seen the adult. Lol I’m just not sure if this might be a good time to try getting rid of them.. do they tend to become bad problems? or is this something that the experienced say to not worry about with a newer tank?

Gtinnel · May 23, 2021

If it is in fact just a common bristleworm you will probably have lots of them eventually. In my experience they're not a problem, but some people hate the way they look and do anything to keep them out. To me they're part of the CUC.