Bristle worms

[Paul B]

A while ago I added a Shrimp/gobi combination and just today they moved to a home at the back corner of the tank under my overflow skimmer.
Anyway they are in a place where food never gets to so I shot some pellets near them. In less than a minute the entire corner of the tank extending about 5" both ways was a maze of large 6" bristleworms. I knew I had a bunch of them but I never knew I had so many. They were crawling all over the shrimp and gobi who didn't seem to mind.
If anything dies in this tank it wil be gone in minutes. Great scavengers, and I will try to get a better picture. :nerd:
I would imagine the worms are a larger percentage of the livestock than my fish.
Very cool.

 

[_sludgefactory]

Nice. I barely have any. Used to have a ton also but dont know what happened. Now i only have a few in my fuge that i put there myself.

 

[Paul B]

I have so many that they ran out of places to hide and I see a lot of them out in the open. They have a great sense of smell and track down the tiniest piece of food. At feeding time, the fish have to fight with them for left overs.

 

[_sludgefactory]

Free cleanup crew!

 

[Just Clownin Around]

In my breeder tanks they are stacked up on the sand bed. They just lay out in the open because there is no place for them to go

 

[Chops30]

Oh I love looking in my tank at night with a red flashlight. Piont of fact seen one last night stretched out about 10 in. long. Couldn't imagine at the number in your tank as mature as it is.

 

[Paul B]

Couldn't imagine at the number in your tank as mature as it is.

I don't think any of them are much over 35 years old :wink:

 

[BillyC]

One of the best clean up crews for sand IMO!

 

[Bernie]

I hate the prickly little suckers... However they make good food for a six line wrasse and they are pretty interesting to watch. I recently spent 30 minutes watching my pistol shrimp evict one from his hole. It didn't understand that the pop meant "get off my lawn" in pistol shrimp-ese, and finally the shrimp just ripped the worm into pieces.

 

[Wy Renegade]

I've always kept the smaller ones around, but a buddy pulled a worm out of his tank that was over 12 inches long and was actually pulling coral under the sandbed.

 

[_Alex_]

LFS we had here at one time had one that was roughly 2 ft long.... tank it was in had been set up for roughly 20 years as a display in there store. was a very scarey and interesting site. it never seemed to bother anything in the tank that was alive but if it was dead or injured it was a goner!!

 

[Paul B]

LFS we had here at one time had one that was roughly 2 ft long....

I have one 12 feet long. OK maybe not quite that big :squigglemouth:

 

[steamer51]

I imagine I have some large ones (tank established 2006) but have never seen them. Most of the ones I see when I feed are 3 to 6 inches and I enjoy watching them as much as the fish. Some of them are quite colorful, pink with a bright lavender line where their gut is. I have had fish disappear in the past and never found a trace or had an tank crash from something dying so I guess they do a good job. It wouldn't surprise me for you to post a picture of a 12 footer in your tank.