Bristle Worm Outbreak Questions

a few questions here.

one of my tanks(fish only) has had a bristle worm outbreak...i mean like tons of them, they all appeared over night, just blew out of nowhere. what causes them to break out? can copper meds cause it? (just dosed for marine ick)

i vacumed what looked like pretty much all of them, how else can i get rid of these little bugers.

i wouldn't worry about bristle worms especiall in a fowlr tank. thay do alot more good than what used to be though. hey are great detrivors. with that said the only thing i can think of is that there was a spike in deitrus. did you uo your bio load in any way lately?

in a fish only tank bristle worms can only do good and small ones do the best at cleaing the substrate.

biload was changed. 2 fish were lsot due to marine ick brought on by very high nitrates. inhabitants left is one 5" puffer, and 1 maroon clown. nitrates were also lowered from around 400 to 120-140 over 4 days.

hehe, well, its not really my own tank, one of my clients. and i told him that, but he doesnt like the sight of those things, i didnt believe him when he called me up saying they're a;; over the place. but sure enough, when i went over today, they were almost covering the whole floor. they looked really nice

would the maroons and porqupine develope a taste for the bristle worms?

The puffer may....triggers will...husks will....large wrasses will...clowns won't.

Cameron

a 6 line wrasse will eat the small ones for sure

Copper in a client's tank?!? hmm.

From what I've read, bristle worms will expand population to meet food source. Gal on RC was putting clams in the tank to feed her Burr, and found that the bristle worm population was growing astronomically. Ends up the clams were feeding the worms more than the burr:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.p...ight=worms+burr

Just got one of these and they do a great job of trapping micro stars...as for bristle worms I'll let you know when that starts happening.

IF u dosed copper meds, you didnt cause the population to explode. You poisoned all of them and they were crawling out of the rock/substrate trying to get away from the Copper that was beginning to kill them.

did you dose COPPER in a tank with live rock and sand ?

???

An ARROW CRAB will chow down on them for sure.

the tank has live rock, but only like 3 pieces, and the substrate is made up of crushed coral.

the set-up he had wasnt made for saltwater, and i'm currently re-doing everything he has in there.

well those 3 pieces of rock carried in the bristle worms. If its a heavily fed tank, the bristle worms spread into the substrate and when u dosed the copper they freaked out and tried to get away from it. U also effectively killed any other invertebrates that hitched along with the live rock, and i believe u also probably killed any biological filtration that the substrate was offering, as well as any bio filtration from wet/dry or whatever..

Never let that guy switch to a reef tank.

the posted thread on RC is good. what's the big deal with BWs? i mean i'd never want to touch one, and they give me nightmares, but i know they do good stuff for the tank...

^^^^^^^^^^^^

#####.

World, you didn't answer my quetion.....

DID, you dose the tank with COPPER ?

^^^^^^^^^^^^

yes, thanks dave espi - you're my hero.

ps:lol ZING !