I would use the same food you feed the fish. It knows what that is and has already accepted it as food. Best chance for the bait to work.
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True - every one of the smaller ones I see have the puffy red bristles though. Ugh. I don't think I've ever seen a regular looking one in my tank!It’s not a guarantee they are all fireworms. Bristle worms sometimes have a reddish tint, especially when young. But if they all have the puffy red bristles obviously might be the same species.
Got him! See my update post just now. My son gave him a mini funeral, lol. "RIP Wormy - Rest In PIECES". LOLGet some tongs or tweezers and pull him out he’s a thick one . Lol you guys have got an attachment … story of my life
That bristle worm went out with a fight poor thingWell, here's a little update for anyone who's interested:
I got tired of messing around and looking at Wormy just hanging out, mocking me... so I decided to throw on gloves and grab my giant tweezers. Fed the fish their dinner (Rod's herbivore blend), making sure to drop some around the base of Worm Mountain. Got his attention, a little. Thought I could quickly grab him and yank him away from the rock... little did I know, he was 3/4 buried under the rock, and STRONG! Of course I ended up accidentally ripping him in half (well, more like ripped his head off). I tried not to freak out as I tossed the piece that I got into a container, set it aside, and grabbed a bucket. That whole dang rock had to go. I removed the arch from the top and moved it to another spot in the tank (hopefully didn't make the nem too mad), and as I lifted the bottom rock out, the rest of the fireworm was hanging from it. (Yeah, I screamed, lol). I grabbed it with my tweezers, put it in the container with its head (and a smaller fireworm I also caught with the tweezers), and put the rock in the bucket to deal with later.
OH. MY. GOSH. This thing really is huge and scary! I could hardly even look at it... honestly, I kept dry heaving. My husband was highly amused I'm sure.
Holding it stretched out, I'd estimate it is about 10" long... and no joke, it's strong. And fat. Seriously, I am SO glad to have this creature out of my tank (and his little friends too - I didn't see any left behind where the rock was, though I'm sure there are probably still some hiding somewhere biding their time until they can avenge the death of their king).
By the way, those bristles are crazy! You can see in the closeup pics where the bristles are stuck in the rubber tips of my tweezers. The blue rubber tips are like 2" long, for size comparison. I would NOT want to brush up against one of these. No wonder my nem was so peeved.
Sorry for the gross pics since he's torn apart... but I promised I'd post them so here they are:
I know it... I honestly feel really awful about the whole thing. I needed it out but it's still a living creature and I really wish I could have gotten him out in one piece. I even feel bad when I dip corals and see amphipods die.That bristle worm went out with a fight poor thing
Me too - I don't know if this species of worm regenerates their body if they get severed, but either way I didn't want part of him left in the tank to either keep growing, or die and foul up the water. Nothing wants to eat that spiky carcass... maybe snails, but my wrasse keeps killing off my nassarius, lol. My fish were confused after I removed the worm-infested rock. Especially my tomini tang - he kept hanging out where it used to be, looked like he was trying to figure out where his sleeping cave went. Going to have to put a new rock in there and rebuild it, spoiled fish!Glad you got both pieces! Nice work. I and others forgot to mention they are very rarely all the way out SO they can retract quickly if you’re not ready…. They are also a lot faster than you would think. That is one ugly SOMFW!