So Many Worms

Squishie89 · Oct 9, 2013

Before putting the tank to bed I noticed a small worm, about a centimeter long, and a millimeter wide. I tried to ID it, and pretty sure it was a baby bristle worm. I put it back in. Then I was doing my usual night check on my tank and I look towards the bottom of the tank and on the left front and middle front pane of glass was 20+ baby bristle worms. Then on the right front side there was a tumble weed of super tiny baby bristle worms, 30+ of them. I am not sure what happened. I saw a similar worm about a month ago, but did not think much of it, otherwise I have not had any bristle worms or at least none that made themselves known.

Weirdly enough, I have been having limpets and stomatellas breeding pretty profusely over the past 2-3 months. No idea if this is connected.
My best guess is that I am just really, really over feeding and just have way too much food in the tank and all of these critters are just in paradise.

Now the questions, what should I do? Should I be worried? Should I just try to start decreasing my feeding? Traps? Arrow crab/coral banded shrimp? I have not noticed any possible bad bristle worm activity; corals are great, fish are fine, inverts doing good.

NanaReefer · Oct 9, 2013

Do not worry. Just lighten up on the feedings a little. Really, bristle worms are harmless and IMO one of the best members of our clean up crews. Same for the snails

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Squishie89 · Oct 9, 2013

And see that is how I felt, which is why I put the first dude back. But even good things can be bad in large concentrations, which is/was my concern.

Reefing Madness · Oct 9, 2013

They will deminish over time, with lack of nutrients for them to feed on, the population will go down. Now, if you get very large ones, those you want to remove.

ReefPiracy · Oct 9, 2013

I just remove them when I can get at them. Always seem to come back.

Squishie89 · Oct 10, 2013

An interesting update. Tonight I counted about 8 babies on the glass. Nothing even close to last night. So I am pretty sure something was going on. Either the brittle stars were spawning (they were all over the rocks, out and exposed, some floating through the water) or the worms were spawning, or both were spawning.

Part of me is so curious as to what happened. Did the stars spawn, which attracted the worms? Vice versa? Do they spawn at the same time? Were they all playing a prank on me? The ocean, and our tanks, sure are full of amazing things, even bristle worms.

goodtimes · Oct 10, 2013

When the little brittle stars spawn they will climb to the top of your rocks and expel a milky fluid. When I seen it there were atleast 10x more stars then I thought I ever had.