Excessive bristle worms???

[toohipnoob]

I've done some extensive googling on "bristle worms." I'm convinced I have the "safe" kind. And I "get" that they are safe and serve as cleanup crew. I have a 29g JBJ nano, and just went through a almost complete die off of fish and inverts due to what I believe was an excessive salinity water exchange (previous new thread). But as I'm cleaning up the tank, moving rock, I'm noticing an enormous amount of bristle worms, large and small. I know that excessive feeding leads to large quantities, but I feed like one cube of frozen marine food (varies) maybe an additional pinch of pellets, occasionally a seaweed strip for the bottom feeders.

My question is. . . can one have TOO MANY bristle worms? Some of the larger ones are like 6-10" long! I realize they eat "dead" critters, but what about weak or injured fish? My fear is, there are so many and with reduced food, they could turn predatory? I realize they can't take down a healthy fish, but what about listless ones? Anenomes? I've lost a lot who get under the rock (cave) and never reappear. Anything that dies, seems to disappear, and never see a carcass or skeleton, so they're doing their jobs. But can there be too many? I'm cleaning up the tank after the recent most life die off, and plan on culling the herd of bristle worms, figuring if there's no harm in "too many" they'll reproduce. Will probably get rid of the bigger ones. I added a picture of one of many live rocks that is covered with them, and this is open water, didn't turn the rock over. They're every where!
Thoughts?

 

[Mjrenz]

I keep coral banded shrimp to help control the population of them, I have one in my dt and one in my refugium. I'd kill as many as I could pick off with a pair of tweezers

 

[LetItReef]

Same here , I pick what I can and there are times that I just squished it and my cleaner shrimps do the rest.

 

[Mike.P]

You need fire... So much fire! But yes, shrimp would be more effective, as others have mentioned, and / or a cigar wrasse. They'll actually tear the larger ones apart.

 

[Peach02]

I've done some extensive googling on "bristle worms." I'm convinced I have the "safe" kind. And I "get" that they are safe and serve as cleanup crew. I have a 29g JBJ nano, and just went through a almost complete die off of fish and inverts due to what I believe was an excessive salinity water exchange (previous new thread). But as I'm cleaning up the tank, moving rock, I'm noticing an enormous amount of bristle worms, large and small. I know that excessive feeding leads to large quantities, but I feed like one cube of frozen marine food (varies) maybe an additional pinch of pellets, occasionally a seaweed strip for the bottom feeders.

My question is. . . can one have TOO MANY bristle worms? Some of the larger ones are like 6-10" long! I realize they eat "dead" critters, but what about weak or injured fish? My fear is, there are so many and with reduced food, they could turn predatory? I realize they can't take down a healthy fish, but what about listless ones? Anenomes? I've lost a lot who get under the rock (cave) and never reappear. Anything that dies, seems to disappear, and never see a carcass or skeleton, so they're doing their jobs. But can there be too many? I'm cleaning up the tank after the recent most life die off, and plan on culling the herd of bristle worms, figuring if there's no harm in "too many" they'll reproduce. Will probably get rid of the bigger ones. I added a picture of one of many live rocks that is covered with them, and this is open water, didn't turn the rock over. They're every where!
Thoughts?

Some are okay but once they get to a inch or two long I’d remove them you can get some predators for them such as wrasse or shrimp but I found for the ones I had I used tweasers to get them out but they where small. For the larger ones I’d use sizers then tweezers or gloves and for the mid sized ones gloves or tweezers

 

[LetItReef]

I thought of making a trap similar to this. This is Not my vid.

 

[Idaho Mojo]

I thought of making a trap similar to this. This is Not my vid.

I cringed so hard when he just started poking at them with his finger lol

 

[Mike.P]

I cringed so hard when he just started poking at them with his finger lol

Seriously. I can't deal with those things... I know they have their benefits, but I don't care. lol

 

[theMeat]

Population will level off with available ‘extra’ food. If you have a bloom in population you’re feeding too much

 

[LetItReef]

Seriously. I can't deal with those things... I know they have their benefits, but I don't care. lol

Agree! I don’t mind loosing the “benefits”.
I really don't like worms.

 

[NotFishyFishGuy]

wow. that is a lot of worms. coral banded shrimps helps also maybe lower your feeding. for my fluval 13.5 evo, I have 1 clown and 1 damsel and a coral banded shrimp (and used to have another clown, it jumped out last Friday and died so now I feed even less) . small pinch of pellets or half a cube of frozen brine shrimp is more than enough for them. don't know how many fish you have in your tank. used to have 10 bristle worms on a single rock. starved everything for 2 days, fed a little to the fish, starved for another 2 days, and the worms are gone. think my shrimp definitely helped

 

[will25u]

Agree! I don’t mind loosing the “benefits”.
I really don't like worms.

Seriously

 

[LetItReef]

Seriously

HAHA

 

[ChiSox Rabbitfish]

I keep coral banded shrimp to help control the population of them, I have one in my dt and one in my refugium. I'd kill as many as I could pick off with a pair of tweezers

Yes I had a Coral banded that would snack on those all the time but had to get rid of it after it snacked on a cleaner

 

[Mjrenz]

Yes I had a Coral banded that would snack on those all the time but had to get rid of it after it snacked on a cleaner

I've seen mine nip at my cleaner a couple of times but fortunately they ignore each other for the most part

 

[ChiSox Rabbitfish]

I've seen mine nip at my cleaner a couple of times but fortunately they ignore each other for the most part

He also mangled one of the fins on a blue tang with its claws ever since the shrimp was taken out the tang is so much happier and fin getting better

 

[Mjrenz]

I've done some extensive googling on "bristle worms." I'm convinced I have the "safe" kind. And I "get" that they are safe and serve as cleanup crew. I have a 29g JBJ nano, and just went through a almost complete die off of fish and inverts due to what I believe was an excessive salinity water exchange (previous new thread). But as I'm cleaning up the tank, moving rock, I'm noticing an enormous amount of bristle worms, large and small. I know that excessive feeding leads to large quantities, but I feed like one cube of frozen marine food (varies) maybe an additional pinch of pellets, occasionally a seaweed strip for the bottom feeders.

My question is. . . can one have TOO MANY bristle worms? Some of the larger ones are like 6-10" long! I realize they eat "dead" critters, but what about weak or injured fish? My fear is, there are so many and with reduced food, they could turn predatory? I realize they can't take down a healthy fish, but what about listless ones? Anenomes? I've lost a lot who get under the rock (cave) and never reappear. Anything that dies, seems to disappear, and never see a carcass or skeleton, so they're doing their jobs. But can there be too many? I'm cleaning up the tank after the recent most life die off, and plan on culling the herd of bristle worms, figuring if there's no harm in "too many" they'll reproduce. Will probably get rid of the bigger ones. I added a picture of one of many live rocks that is covered with them, and this is open water, didn't turn the rock over. They're every where!
Thoughts?

One other option you may want to consider is killing them with Prazipro. If you do this I would highly recommend moving any of your remaining livestock to another tank because you'll have a big ammonia spike with how much die off there will be

 

[tdlawdo]

I've seen mine nip at my cleaner a couple of times but fortunately they ignore each other for the most part

I hate these things. I had an 8 biocube that was infested years ago and these things hunted everything in the tank. All the snails! I got some arrow crabs which helped. I finally upgraded to a 29 biocube and threw all the rock away. Murderers!!