Have I got the bristleworms!!!

[Laurie]

My skimmerless 37 gal. seahorse tank is literally crawling with huge bristleworms. At feeding time these guys come out of their rocks and crawl all over the tank looking for goodies. I counted 5 huge (6-7") worms in one small area the other day. I managed to snag one and put him in my 200 gal. to build up the worm population there. Hope to grab another one or two over the next couple of days. Another area of the tank has a virtual NEST of smaller worms (2-3") They are not shy! They don't bother anything just go after the food that drops on the rocks and sand. Since the skimmer pretty much stopped skimming about 3 months ago I have noticed a huge increase in sandbed life, including these worms. Baby stars are nestled in every fold of every leaf of caulerpa and sargassum, the little tube worms with the long white tendrils cover every inch of sandbed, pods are all over the glass (much to the delight of my Mandarin). The tank is teeming with life. Very cool! BTW - this tank is just under a year old. Started it last November.

 

[Laurie]

Yes, I feed the tank quite heavily twice a day. There are a lot of critters to feed and nothing goes to waste. As soon as food hits the water the bristle worms start to make their appearance. The tube worms start pulling in mysis and other chunks of food, the horses begin hunting, the starfish charge across the tank to get their share of the goodies, and the mandarin, clown goby, and baby cow fish just gobble up everything in sight.

I never worry about overfeeding because within a half an hour the food has all disappeared. Since the skimmer stopped working and the population has grown I have gradually increased the amount of food I give and the population seems to increase the more food I provide. I used to get excited seeing one worm - now I see dozens coming out of the rocks. It's amazing!

 

[reefmister]

Sounds like you have a very healthy tank going. All the worms, stars ect. are great. I just wanted to tell you about what happened to a friend of mine though. He had a 300 gal reef that was 8 years old and absolutly gorgeous. He had some monster worms that he had seen from time to time 12-14 inches long. Then out of nowhere he started to get ammonia spikes. he lost a few large colonies because of it. We tried for months to figure it out but were stumped. We decided to take out some of the rock and check it for dieing sponges or something. While taking out the rock I of coarse dropped one. The rock shatered and a gent smel came out of the rock. We looked at the rock and it was almost solid worm. I dont mean lots of worm I mean one massive worm. It had grown in the rock tunneling its way through the rock as it grew. Without a word of a lie, I would estimate the worm to have been 4 to 5 feet long. Our geuss was that the worm became so large its food intake most of been massive, but its entanglement mead it impossible to access food and thus it died ( ammonia spike) we continued to examine the other rocks and found four other with the same problem ( 2-3 foot worm but lots of them) and they were also dieing. whether or not this has any bearing on your tank I dont know but in my opinion keep an eye on those puppies. my friend lost a lot of beautiful peices.


good luck

 

[Laurie]

Ewwwwwww! I think I'm going to lose my lunch now. That is so gross! I can almost smell it now. Thank you so much for the heads up. That is something I never considered. I don't know how you would go about preventing something like that. I am sure many of us have worms we've never seen, just like your friend.

I guess the only real safeguard I have is that seahorses are extremely sensitive to ANY amount of ammonia and they are a good guage. I had a couple of tiny ammonia spikes early on with this tank because they weren't eating all the food and I didn't have a good detrivore population at that time. The slightest amount of ammonia and the horses would look all droopy and wouldn't eat. I learned very quickly that if they didn't look perky (at least as perky as seahorses ever look

)then it was time to test the water. Ten minutes after a water change they would be dashing about eating anything they could find. They're kind of like the canaries in the coal mines.

Thanks for the warning - I'm sure that was a dreadful experience. I will definitely keep a count of my guys as much as possible.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwww! I'm still feeling icky!

 

[Anonymous]

Monitor your nitrate levels. Just because the food is getting eaten doesn't mean nutrient levels in the tank will not become elevated. It's easy to feed beyone the sand bed/live rock's ability to process the waste load.
Sounds like you are having fun!

Good luck.
Jim

 

[Anonymous]

Do you feed the hell out of the tank? I'm trying to get my worm/pod/star/etc critter population up to those levels, and was wondering if you did anything differently...

Peace,

Chip

 

[davelin315]

It's very possible that the ammonia spikes killed the worms, and not vice versa. Worms are very good at getting in and out of various places as they have no bones, and therefore, don't have to worry about what they can squeeze in and out of. I would doubt that they worms caused the spike because they died, I would bet it was the other way around. My guess is something else went wrong with the tank. I guess it's a moot point, though, as there is no way to find out what the cause was, and we'll only be able to come up with conjecture.

 

[bferris01]

HI there, was wondering if you would consider sending me some of your worms/live if I paid the shipping, I am about 2 hours from Baltimore alought I will be in DC Sun 28th of OCt. If you would consider it please email me at [email protected]