Does anyone know of any inverts that eat Chaetopterid worms?

djryan2000 · Nov 28, 2022

I feed a mandarin a completely prepared food diet so they are…. Very abundant in my tank. I know the best tip is to feed less, but I’m looking to see if there are any creatures I can add to help keep their population under control.

Currently have two clowns, two hawk fish (bonded pair), the Mandy, and a coral banded shrimp.

Idoc · Dec 2, 2022

Bump...

ISpeakForTheSeas · Dec 2, 2022

I'm not sure. I know arrow crabs will eat worms, but these guys are similar to spionid worms, and I don't know that the crab would be able to actually eliminate them, as spionids at least are able to regrow portions of their bodies when eaten (and I'd imagine these guys can too). So, to actually eliminate the worms, the invert may need to be able to get through/into the worms' tubes to consume the entire worm (otherwise it will probably just regrow the eaten portion after a little while).

My comment on this issue with spionids:

ISpeakForTheSeas said:
I’m not sure. I’d imagine you would need something that could follow them into their burrows for the predation to be effective though, as these guys have been shown to be partially eaten by things like killifish only to regenerate without issue on a regular basis in the wild (with specimens typically losing ~13-24% of their bodies and regenerating completely within ~2 weeks). I’d guess there are some predatory worms that might be effective against these guys, but (like the nudibranch mentioned above) you’d have a tough time finding one even if you knew which species to look for.

djryan2000 · Dec 6, 2022

ISpeakForTheSeas said:
I'm not sure. I know arrow crabs will eat worms, but these guys are similar to spionid worms, and I don't know that the crab would be able to actually eliminate them, as spionids at least are able to regrow portions of their bodies when eaten (and I'd imagine these guys can too). So, to actually eliminate the worms, the invert may need to be able to get through/into the worms' tubes to consume the entire worm (otherwise it will probably just regrow the eaten portion after a little while).

My comment on this issue with spionids:

Darn. Thanks for the reply.