What eats Brittle worms?

[SeanCallan]

What 'smaller' fish eat brittle worms, if I recall correctly someone mentioned six-lines, but aside from them, what others?

My current 12g nano is nearly overrun with pods and brittles, I have a few that are nearly 2-3'' so I want to add in something that'll work on their population over time.

[losmandy]

How abt trying the coralife trap-em (bristleworm trap) ?

[G.Alexander]

Just put a piece of PVC pipe with different sized holes in the tank. Both sides locked with anything. If you fill in clam meat they will enter the pipe in the night trough the holes and cant get out, because of their ticker diameter from the food. Also the Stenopus hispidus shrimp eats them if they are not too big.

G.Alexander

[mesocosm]

... if I recall correctly someone mentioned six-lines, but aside from them, what others?

Arrow crabs, Pseudochromis fridmani, Pseudochromis duotioti ... to name but a few.

... so I want to add in something that'll work on their population over time.

They'll "work" on the population over time, all right ... to near extinction, with the loss of vast majority of the benefits that their presence contributes to the biogeomineralization processes of the ecosystem.

It turns out that there needs to be a "critical biomass" of these types of beasties in order to effectively process wastes. I would suggest that you be sure not to allow the population to fall below that level.

Of course, this assumes that we're talking about the happy and useful "bristleworms", such as Eurythoe species. If we're talking about the evil, nasty "fireworms", such as Hermodice species ... well ... kill 'em ... nuke them all ...

... and feel good about it.

JMO ... HTH ...

[SeanCallan]

This looks just like what I have: http://www.reefs.org/hhfaq/pages/pic...q_bristle.html

So I guess I'll just let those little buggers keep up the good work then

[mesocosm]

Greetings All !

This looks just like what I have: http://www.reefs.org/hhfaq/pages/pic...q_bristle.html
So I guess I'll just let those little buggers keep up the good work then

I've often found definitive polychaete IDs to be irritating and problematic ... especially with mediocre pictures. I have some real questions as to whether or not the beastie pictured in your link is in fact correctly keyed out as Eurythoe complanata ... it looks much more like a Linopherus species ... to me anyway. IME, Eurythoe complanata typically exhibits much duller coloration, and much less distinct grouping/clustering of setae ...

... but with a better picture, I could easily stand corrected.

JMO ... in either case, both are beneficial scavengers/detritovores.


Dr. Shimek presents some excellent pics in "The Large Worm Turns ..."
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-04/rs/index.php

Notice the similarity with figure 2 (Linopherus species). Just a thought. BTW, figure 3 shows an excellent pic of the dreaded predatory Hermodice carunculata "Fireworm."

... ...




FWIW, Dr. Shimek has some excellent keys for idenitifying ... at least down to a genus level ... some of the more "obscure" beasties we encounter in our tanks. The links are:

Animal Key Introduction
http://rshimek.com/animal_identifications1.htm

Dichotomous Key
http://rshimek.com/Invertebrate%20Ke...jor%20Taxa.htm


FYI ...

[mesocosm]

Greetings All !


Then again, maybe I'm just tripping badly on photo interpretation. Here's one of my Eurythoe complanata guys ...



Time to up my AAHC dosage again ... ...

[SeanCallan]

yeah that's what mine look like.

I can't believe his worm "Max" was 4 feet long!!! OMG.