I washed one the rocks from my established tank, while trying to get rid of a giant bristle worm.

Kdedoe3 · Mar 26, 2022

I was given an already established aquarium. The light hadn’t worked in a while so all the coral died. There are 2 fish and 1 hermit crab. A few days ago I discovered that there are multiple large bristle worms hiding in the sand/rocks. They ate the shrimp I added to the tank and I’m scared they’ll eventually eat the other fish. So I watched and waited to find one but I was unable to grab it (wearing rubber gloves) so I removed the rock that it was hiding in. I saw a video of a guy who soaked a rock in hot tap water to get the worms out so I did the same thing. But I think the guy from the video May have been the wrong person to listen to. So now I’ve removed one worm but I don’t know what I should do with the rock. I don’t want to put it back in a harm the fish and mess up the tank. Anyone have any ideas about what I should do so that I can safely add the rock back to the tank?

TriggerFinger · Mar 26, 2022

You can put it in a small tank/tote/bucket with saltwater and a pump and re-cycle the rock. If/once no ammonia is present, you can add it back to the tank.

Kdedoe3 · Mar 26, 2022

Okay, wasn’t sure if I needed to do that or not. Thank you. Any idea how long that typically takes?

Sebastiancrab · Mar 26, 2022

I did the same thing but it was my idea to nuke the worm. I put the rock right back in and had no trouble.

MaxTremors · Mar 26, 2022

Very unlikely a bristle worm caught and killed your shrimp, it most likely died of something else and the bristle worm was just eating it. Bristle worms are generally harmless, I wouldn’t worry about them, but if you really want to remove them, get a trap or get an arrow crab/coral banded shrimp. I would cycle the rock in a bucket of SW for a month or so, and then put back in the tank.