ID please?

[mimo91088]

Yup, it's me clueless yet again. About a month ago I started a 10 gallon to use as a zoa garden. It's been running fallow with no fish or coral, just a couple of pieces of live rock and a ton of bristleworms. Not even a light on it yet, just been adding pure ammonia occasionally to feed the BB.

I have all this black crap growing now. Can anyone tell me what it is?

 

[DSC reef]

Looks like a bunch of detritus. You can vaccum it out. Clean up crew produce waste as well.

 

[mimo91088]

It looked like that to me too, but it's alot. Do you think just bristleworms can cover the bottom of a 10 gallon like this though? The worms only came in on the rocks like 2 weeks ago. If they produce that much waste, how are they beneficial?

 

[DSC reef]

Everything produces waste, your fish, coral, clean up crew, bacteria. It's how it's broken down. What you see is probably inert and is just ready to be cleaned.

 

[mimo91088]

Alright thanks for the info. Much better answer than I expected lol

 

[mimo91088]

Follow up question... how the hell do I have so many bristleworms if I haven't fed this tank a single bit of food? I can count at least 40 out in the open. All pretty tiny. I thought they don't reproduce with insufficient food? Is this perhaps a sign there's some dead critter inside the rock or something?

 

[DSC reef]

You mentioned live rock, was it from a previous tank?

 

[mimo91088]

Yes it was from my main dt that has worms, but I don't see nearly as many in there. Perhaps they're there, but less rock = less hiding places? It's just odd that they seem to have multiplied quite a bit instead of starving.

 

[mimo91088]

BTW DSC, you seem to be the first to hop on answers to the noob questions. I truly appreciate the helpfulness.

 

[DSC reef]

No worries, your very welcome. My guess would be quite a bit of food left over on the rocks for the worms to ingest. I don't think it's an issue and your right, as the food supply runs low the numbers will diminish.

 

[mimo91088]

So glad I didn't press the reset button and dry out the tank like I almost did this morning

 

[DSC reef]

Definitely don't do that. You want your diversity to continue to grow.