brissel worms.. good? bad?

Ocean thompson · Sep 11, 2019

Theres lots of small companies out there selling these things and saying there good for clean up.

Theres also other companies,articles ect. that speak negatively and advise people to avoid these in the marine tank.

what are some of your thoughts? upsides? downsides?

4ddiction · Sep 11, 2019

I have hundreds of them. Small, large none never bothered me. They have bristle worms that are bad I think the fire ones. If they get too too big then they may be a problem. However big means multiple inches long. They are great detritus cleaner uppers

BGrand · Sep 11, 2019

I have some in my 5 gallon nano that were hitchhikes in my live rock. Here is my thoughts, take them as you want.

Ugly and everyone that sees them are like "EWW what the heck are those ugly things". In fact I don't like the looks of them so much that my second tank I started with Marco rocks just to avoid having them in my new tank. So far so good after 9 months.
No issue with MY tank.
Building on #2 I have remove the sand and gone bare bottom. I now see them eating left over food and detritus.
Breed like rabbits. When I went bare bottom I scrubbed my rock and remove a metric crap ton of them and now I have several back in the tank. My thoughts are once you have them you pretty much have them.
The grow pretty fast.

**Just make sure they are truly bristle worms. Post a picture and we can take a look.

Roid Reefs · Sep 11, 2019

Bristleworms are great detritovores. Good cuc, the heavier you feed, the larger their populations will grow.
They can be creepy to some people, but be careful with them when putting hands in the tank and moving rocks, frags, etc. even the regular bristleworms can cause a painful sting with their bristles. Can use some duct tape over the spot to pull some bristles out.
Fireworms are said to eat detritus first, but also coral and anything they need to survive.