worms

[weizer896]

My husband was moving his clams around today...he picked up a turbo
snail to move it...it was dead. :angry A worm had eaten it.
It was about 1' long.(the worm) We were wondering what to do and if our clams
would be next :unsure The turbo snail was the size of a golf ball.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Looks like a reddish colored centipede.

[Thunderkat]

Was the worm hairy?

If the worm was hairy it was a bristle worm and it was eating an already dead snail.

Edit: There is one species of bristle worm that does eat clams. I believe they are a reddish color. If they have not gone after your clams already you probably don't have that kind.

[weizer896]

We just got our clams yestarday.My hubby says it was a reddish color. :( These clams are beautiful..Iwould really hate to loose any of them.

[alexwolf]

i have a ton of bristle worms in my tank, theyre red and blue, with 5 clams and I have never had any problem with them.

[brieman]

Ok thanks, just a little worried after moving snail and finding all these worms falling out. :sick
Brian

[alexwolf]

chances are the snail was dead already, and they were cleaning up. I personally love bristleworms, they do a great job for me.

[Thunderkat]

Hermodice carunculata, is predatory on stony corals and gorgonians. Fortunately, individuals of this species may be easily distinguished and removed from the system


Bristle worms can be, and usually, are a real problem for reef hobbyists. Indeed, they create havoc in the aquarium, especially when they grow to larger sizes. Bristle worms grow quickly! Real quickly! They feed on anything they can find in the tank and grow to sizes that amaze most hobbyists. This process does not take long either.

Moreover once you have one, you actually can be quite sure that you have many of them as it is practically unheard of that only one is present in the tank. One is a sign that "they" are present. When I say "they" I mean a lot of them.

Whereas small bristle worms may look really harmless, larger specimens that have grown to sizes of 24 inches or more in length, are quite impressive and can cause serious damage. Remember too that the size you see is not necessarily the size of the worm. It may be retracted and look short and thick, but it can stretch itself to a real long size and be very thin. In either case it is a voracious eater and is carnivorous. It attacks corals, Tube worms, Christmas tree worms, rock anemones, and so on. In short it creates havoc in the tank.

In addition to feeding on left over foodstuff, small crustaceans, and detritus from which they extract uneaten parts, bristle worms attack corals and sometimes other animals too (anemones are a good example of the latter. Leather corals are another one).

Because of the damage they do, they absolutely need to be physically removed from the aquarium. This can be quite a task and is not as simple at it seems at first, as many of Hobbyists may have found out over time.

Most hobbyists are well aware of this, but just do not know how to go about removing them, or if they do, they are not too sure about all the details of the various methods described in magazines, some as the cure-all for bristle worms (which they often are not). Before being successful many attempts may be necessary (again, as many of you may have found out).

In addition, even if you catch a few of them, there may still be plenty more in the aquariu. Careful inspection of the tank, at night, with a red light, several hours after the main lights have gone off, will tell you whether or not there are any left in the tank, as they will be out at night, foraging and feeding. The red light is not really visible to them so they do not scurry away when you use. Make sure though that the room is totally dark besides the red ligth you are using (a red party bulb or a flashlight covered with red acetate will do the trick).

Let me dispel a myth: the small bristle worm traps that are sold in stores will often not work. The trap is either too small or it just does not live up to your expectations. It may trap some real small worms but it will, in the majority of cases, not trap the real large ones, the ones you really need to get rid of as they are the ones that cause most of the damage.

Home made traps work just as well as commercial ones. The method described here lets you build such a trap. And the one suggested here works. The only caveat is that you will need patience. Few worms will be caught at one time. If you have many, you may need to work with the trap for weeks to get all the bristle worms out of your tank. Unfortunately, I do not know of an easier way to do it. And believe me, I have tried many.

Many methods have been advocated in magazines to rid the aquarium of bristle worms. Most work but often a lot of patience is required before you actually get all the worms out of the aquarium. There are some that work better than others and those are the ones I will describe here.

You may have to try several before you actually have the success you wish. Not all methods work in all tanks and with all worms (note that there are many types of bristle and other carnivorous worms). Patience and perseverance are the key to success. This is often the case with reef tanks, not just for bristle worm removal. When one tries to go too fast, one makes mistakes and may stress corals and animals with the ensuing problems.

To find out whether or not you actually have bristle worms in the tank is not always that easy. It is even harder to do so during the day because they hide inside rocks and in crevices. They also hide in areas that are dark, behind and underneath rock and in the live sand you may have in your tank.

To determine whether any are present, the tank should be looked at during the night, several hours after the aquarium has been in the total dark. Even moonlight is a deterrent so you may need to close blinds or curtains and make sure the room is as dark as possible for several hours.

Bristle worms will come out in moonight type conditions, but more of them will come out when the darkness is greater, hence the suggestions to really ensure total darkness.

Note also that you need to look at the tank with a "red" light. No other light can be used because the worms will disappear as soon as regular light is used. They are sensitive to it and go into hiding. When red light is used they remain in the open, where you can see them.

Can you actually catch them while they are in the open? Some have tried by lowering wooden kitchen type tweezers into the tank very slowly and grabbing the worm. This method has worked but is not one that will help you get rid of all worms. You may however catch a few in this manner.

Mind you, when you look at your tank at night you may discover that you have plenty of other animals too, not just bristle and other worms for example. You really have (own) two tanks:

the one you see during the day
and the one you see at night (after the lights have been out for several hours).
What you see during the day and what you see during the night are vastly different. Many animals that you will not see during the day will be out and visible during the night. Some corals, or small rock anemones that are photophobic (do not like light) will extend their polyps during the night.

In addition, the appearance of certain animals changes during the night, especially if they are night feeders (e.g Bubble corals).

To see the worms and other animals, the room needs to be totally dark too. Having just the tank lights off is not quite enough. The darker the room is, the better and the more creatures you are likely to see crawling and roaming around the aquarium. Often you had no ideas these were present in your tank. Why? Simply because they are night animals and do not show themselves during the day.

When approaching the aquarium with your red light, do so "slowly". Do not make brusk movements. Your presence and rapid movements "may" result in some of the animals you normally do not see during the day to go into hiding. Do everything in slow motion. Play it safe. The slower you move around the tank the better off you are.

[GaryP]

Just remember there are thousands of species of this type of worm. Only a few of them are likely to be a problem in your system. While everything mentioned above is correct for SOME bristle worms, it does use a very broad brush to make the entire family into the aquarium version of Lex Luther.

[alexwolf]

Yes, this is a quote from Dr. Ron Schimek

The infauna are "the clean-up crew" and the "reef-janitorial" staff, and the array found in a successful tank may be DIVERSE! More than 200 different species commonly are found living in a mature sand bed. These include many types of flatworms, round worms, dozens of species of bristle worms, small snails, brittle stars, small sea cucumbers, protozoans, and many types of small crustaceans. The total populations may be immense. I have done sampling to measure the abundances found in the 45 gallon tank I mentioned earlier, and the number of animals larger than half a mm, or about one fiftieth of inch, in that tank ranges from 90,000 to 150,000 depending on what part of their population cycle the various species are in.



Left. An harpacticoid copepod, about 1/50th of an inch long. Barely visible, these small crustaceans are an important part of the food chains and clean-up crews in our tanks. They live on and in the sediments. Center. A group of tube-dwelling bristle worms, probably chaetopterids, in my 60 gallon Stichodactyla tank. These animals are primarily filter feeders catching small particles with their paired feeding tentacles. Left. The head end of a small predatory bristle worm called a syllid. These probably eat other small worms and move through the sediments in search of them. This worm was about 1/10th of an inch long.

What does this diverse and abundant array of critters do for and in the sand bed? Well, some will eat excess food, detritus, or algae. In doing so, they utilize it, and excrete part of it as waste. In turn, bacteria utilize that, and thus the infauna help keep the biological filter going. Additionally, many infaunal animals burrow ingesting some sediments as they go. They digest the microorganisms off of them, opening space for bacteria to grow.

By moving through sediments, the animals jostle and move the particles. Not much, just a little tiny bit. It has been estimated that each day each small organism moves about 10 to 100 cubic millimeter of sediment. Multiplying this tiny average amount of jostling by the number of animals in the tank gives the total amount of disturbance. In my 45 gallon tank, with an average population of about 100,000 small animals, from one to ten million cubic millimeters of sediment is moved each day. Or phrased another way, the entire tank's sediment volume could be completely turned over at least once every three to thirty days. With this amount of jostling and sediment eating, sediment clumping the sediments will simply not occur.

Consequently, excess food is eaten and disposed of or recycled as animal or algal flesh, and that the biological filter is maintained in the best of condition. And, best of all you, as the aquarist, didn't have to do anything. The animals did it all for you. All you had to do was to sit back, and enjoy a healthy tank. And, yes, I know it was a dirty job, but somebody had to do it...

[alexwolf]

Here is a fantastic article about worms :

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-04/rs/index.htm

[mathias]

whenever something dies in my tank it dissappears .... which hopefully isn't a lot of times....