What causes bristle worms to die?

[Brofessor]

I realized that I haven't seen any bristle worms in probably 3 weeks now but I used to see a ton of them. What could cause them to disappear?

My nitrates have risen in the past couple weeks from undetectable with an API kit to somewhere between the colors for 10 and 20. Salinity slowly floats between 1.023 and 1.025. Calcium stays between 420 and 460. Everything else has been the same for months.

Current tank inhabitants: 2 clowns, 1 bubble tip anemone, 1 emerald crab, 1 pistol shrimp, 2 peppermint shrimp, 7 hermit crabs.

KH	pH	NO2	NO3	Ammonia	Calcium	Phosphate	Temp	Salinity
120	8.2	0	15	0-0.25	420	0-0.25	79.7	1.024

 

[bacc2bacc]

Chances are if they are still in your tank, they are not dead, just very very good at hiding. Wake up in the middle of the night and peek around with a flashlight.

 

[Brofessor]

Chances are if they are still in your tank, they are not dead, just very very good at hiding. Wake up in the middle of the night and peek around with a flashlight.

Lights go out at 8pm and I tend to check in on the tank until about midnight. Last time I saw a bristle worm was hanging out with a big brittle starfish that I had but gave away 3 weeks ago. Do those guys eat bristle worms?

 

[Idoc]

They kind of self regulate numbers based on the food supply available as well.

 

[bacc2bacc]

Lights go out at 8pm and I tend to check in on the tank until about midnight. Last time I saw a bristle worm was hanging out with a big brittle starfish that I had but gave away 3 weeks ago. Do those guys eat bristle worms?

Doesn’t seem like you have any natural bristleworm predators, so the population could’ve dwindled down with less food being supplied like mentioned above. Try the water bottle and straws trick with some meaty food inside, leave it overnight in your tank, I bet you wake up to some scary lookin biggums lol best of luck

 

[Brofessor]

They kind of self regulate numbers based on the food supply available as well.

I assumed my nitrates were rising because I had too much food available. I've been seeing more vermetid snails (which I still can't find a concensus on whether those are good, bad, or just ugly), copepods, and these very tiny white worms that pop out of the sand and wiggle around.

 

[Idoc]

I assumed my nitrates were rising because I had too much food available. I've been seeing more vermetid snails (which I still can't find a concensus on whether those are good, bad, or just ugly), copepods, and these very tiny white worms that pop out of the sand and wiggle around.

You may be just getting more biodiversity with the pods and other worms therefore greater competition for food sources... that's a good thing though. I don't know of a connection between nitrates and bristleworms, though. They seem to flourish in all types of aquariums.

 

[Brofessor]

Thanks guys. I just hoped that there wasn't some parameter that I don't test for that was causing them to die. But thinking about it now, if some chemical was in enough chaos to kill bristle worms, it probably would have killed everything else, too.