So, I was just thinking the last week as I watched my tank and saw nightmare posts of tanks on here and FB about worm infestations and I was so thankful that after 4 years of my current reef I don't have bristleworms! Well, last night Karma decided to kick me where it counts...
I turned the furnace room light on (just an incandescent room light for my "in wall" 340 gallon tank) and was observing it in the yellow light. To discover a pile of worms on my sand bed near one side of the tank. One was curling around my nori clip that I normally feed nori from. That one was short and fat. The others were long and moving around on the sand bed. I've never seen any worms in my tank and I've observed it many times at night.
So, three changes I've made in the last 2 months
1. doubled my in tank circulation with 2 additional Maxspect XF 280 gyres and a wave engine controller to decrease flow at night and increase it during the day and have an hour of nutrient export.
2. I stopped doing water changes.
3. I am on day 4 of dosing around 30 ml of live phytoplankton per day.
My goal with phyto was to boost my pod population for my CBB as I noticed him eating a lot of pods. My suspicion is I boosted food population for worms as well, which allowed them to take off? Or I'm not sure why they were coming out of the rocks if I hadn't seen them for 4 years, why would they come out now?
I hate worms! And why isn't my dragon wrasse eating them? Or my CBB? You guys are constantly searching for food, dinner was served right in front of you!
I turned the furnace room light on (just an incandescent room light for my "in wall" 340 gallon tank) and was observing it in the yellow light. To discover a pile of worms on my sand bed near one side of the tank. One was curling around my nori clip that I normally feed nori from. That one was short and fat. The others were long and moving around on the sand bed. I've never seen any worms in my tank and I've observed it many times at night.
So, three changes I've made in the last 2 months
1. doubled my in tank circulation with 2 additional Maxspect XF 280 gyres and a wave engine controller to decrease flow at night and increase it during the day and have an hour of nutrient export.
2. I stopped doing water changes.
3. I am on day 4 of dosing around 30 ml of live phytoplankton per day.
My goal with phyto was to boost my pod population for my CBB as I noticed him eating a lot of pods. My suspicion is I boosted food population for worms as well, which allowed them to take off? Or I'm not sure why they were coming out of the rocks if I hadn't seen them for 4 years, why would they come out now?
I hate worms! And why isn't my dragon wrasse eating them? Or my CBB? You guys are constantly searching for food, dinner was served right in front of you!