As if bristle worms weren't already prolific enough, today I captured this video of a full-blown bristle worm spawning frenzy. Although the video is undoubtedly a disgusting spectacle, the circumstances under which it happened were quite catastrophic. Over the past month, I have been slowly acclimating corals from my old tank to the larger new tank I've been working on for a while now. Today was supposed to be my final day of what has otherwise been a smooth tank transition. All I had left to move were some frags of Millepora, Stylophora, Cyphastrea, Gorgonian, Psammocora, Euphyllia, Chalice, and three Rock Flower Anemones. Additionally, there was a Tuxedo Urchin, Tiger Conch, three Nassarius snails, three Dwarf Blue Leg Hermit Crabs, four Sexy Shrimps, a Yellow Tang, and a Flame Hawkfish in the tank. I had been keeping the two fish in isolation in the tank and planned to keep them there for another week.
Last night while I was doing a water change, I must have bumped the power strip that the protein skimmer for the tank was plugged into and knocked it out of the outlet. For this AIO tank, the protein skimmer was the sole source of oxygenation. To my horror, just as I started working on the tank transition again for the day, I realized that my fish and Sexy Shrimp in the tank had all fallen victim to a tank crash I had no idea had even happened until then. After running numerous tests, I concluded that this likely occurred due to oxygen depletion overnight caused by the protein skimmer being unplugged. Luckily, the rest of the CUC, Rock Flower Anemones, and most of the coral appeared to be still clinging to life. As for the Tuxedo Urchin, it's not looking too promising, but only time will tell.
While I was finally coming to terms with what happened, I noticed that the bristle worms in the tank were out and about as if the display light were not on full brightness. The next thing I knew, the larger of the bristle worms started spraying cloudy mucus into the water column, which seemed only to add insult to injury. After observing this for a few moments, I grabbed my phone and took a video of the tail end of the all-out bristle worm mating frenzy. Although the video is not great, pay attention to the bottom right portion by the Rock Flower Anemone to see the first bristle worm spawn and then shift your focus over to the bristle worm in the center to see it spawn right afterward.
I have a theory as to why all the bristle worms suddenly started to spawn. It is well known in the reef-keeping hobby that clams will sometimes spawn when highly stressed or dying in a last-ditch effort to procreate. As soon as I noticed the dead Sexy Shrimp and fish, I immediately started to move the live rock around to see what was still alive. My theory is that the oxygen-depleted water paired with the sudden rearranging of live rock in the tank triggered the same type of eleventh-hour spawning behavior in the bristle worms as observed in clams. I'd be curious to know if anyone else has ever experienced such a mass bristle worm spawning event and if the conditions under which it occurred were similar to that of what I just witnessed.
This entire ordeal made me finally decide to join the Reef2Reef community to share what I observed and vent about the tank crash casualties. Here's to hoping my next post is promoted by something much more pleasant!
Last night while I was doing a water change, I must have bumped the power strip that the protein skimmer for the tank was plugged into and knocked it out of the outlet. For this AIO tank, the protein skimmer was the sole source of oxygenation. To my horror, just as I started working on the tank transition again for the day, I realized that my fish and Sexy Shrimp in the tank had all fallen victim to a tank crash I had no idea had even happened until then. After running numerous tests, I concluded that this likely occurred due to oxygen depletion overnight caused by the protein skimmer being unplugged. Luckily, the rest of the CUC, Rock Flower Anemones, and most of the coral appeared to be still clinging to life. As for the Tuxedo Urchin, it's not looking too promising, but only time will tell.
While I was finally coming to terms with what happened, I noticed that the bristle worms in the tank were out and about as if the display light were not on full brightness. The next thing I knew, the larger of the bristle worms started spraying cloudy mucus into the water column, which seemed only to add insult to injury. After observing this for a few moments, I grabbed my phone and took a video of the tail end of the all-out bristle worm mating frenzy. Although the video is not great, pay attention to the bottom right portion by the Rock Flower Anemone to see the first bristle worm spawn and then shift your focus over to the bristle worm in the center to see it spawn right afterward.
I have a theory as to why all the bristle worms suddenly started to spawn. It is well known in the reef-keeping hobby that clams will sometimes spawn when highly stressed or dying in a last-ditch effort to procreate. As soon as I noticed the dead Sexy Shrimp and fish, I immediately started to move the live rock around to see what was still alive. My theory is that the oxygen-depleted water paired with the sudden rearranging of live rock in the tank triggered the same type of eleventh-hour spawning behavior in the bristle worms as observed in clams. I'd be curious to know if anyone else has ever experienced such a mass bristle worm spawning event and if the conditions under which it occurred were similar to that of what I just witnessed.
This entire ordeal made me finally decide to join the Reef2Reef community to share what I observed and vent about the tank crash casualties. Here's to hoping my next post is promoted by something much more pleasant!
