[jimmie51]

Ok I know bristles are supposed to be good for a DSB, they help turn the DSB over. What I want to know is am I harming anything by vacuuming them out when I clean the aragonite? I started to get some redish brown algea growing on the aragonite so I decided I had to do a really good cleaning. Well I sucked up a bunch of the bristles. Also will manderans (sp) eat bristle worms? I am planning on getting one and I don't want to be removing any possible food for the little dude.

If this should be in the beginner forum then feel free to move it on over.


Thanks for you help guys.

 

[antwood]

If the bristle worms have a good population, I would think that you would not be doing any harm by sucking a few out here and there.

Mandarins (as far as I know) do not eat bristle worms. Mostly they eat pods. Some have had luck getting them to eat baby brine. But don't count on it.

Ant

 

[cmpenney]

It is generally bad to vaccum a DSB more than absolutly needed. But it not becuase of the bristle worms. Bristle worms usually will be based more in the LR than in the DSB.

Mandarins are more after Pods and Mysid. About the only thing I have seen really go after them is Arrow crabs. I think some people have reported dotty's eating them too but I'm not sure about that.

 

[PaintGuru]

I think a number of wrasses eat bristles and pods.

 

[tszetela]

A CBS will eat them. I would stay away from Arrows if you have any shrimp in the tank.

 

[jimmie51]

Thanks for all of your help. I don't think I made one part clear. I don't have a DSB, I have a 2 or 3 inch bed of aragonite. I have a huge population of bristles so you rprobably right, the few that were vaccumed up probably won't hurt any thing. I just hopes get thsi darn alge stopped. Thanks again for your comments.

 

[PaintGuru]

I'm guessing the bristles exist because you have a lot of detritus on your sand, which is causing your algae problem. You have a few options

1) Really vacuum your sand and it would probably be smart to remove an inch of the sand (2-3" is kinda in no-mans-land).

2) Get rid of the sand entirely and go barebottom and simply syphon out detritus as it builds up.

 

[skylergirl]

Jimmie:

I use aragonite, but at most, it is 2". The tank is 7 months old and I have NEVER vacuumed it out.

Instead, I take a stick and poke it into the substrate stirring it up. Makes the tank look a mess, but what gets carried into the overflow, gets sucked out by the skimmer or settles into the fuge so the pods have something to work on too.

If I happen to be using a turkey baster for feeding, I also take it and blast off the rocks too.

I feed once a day and sometime not at all for a day.

Make sure you are not overfeeding. If you have ALOT of bristle worms, that is not necessarily a good thing. They are living off and breeding on all the extra nutrients in the tank.

Look for some posts on RC. I read one where the person's tank was over run with bristles. They had pictures showing how they pulled out 50 or more and every day. It was truely a sight to behold and extremly gross. They were loosing fish to the bristles!

Funny thing is people wanted to buy the bristles from the person, but they didn't ship well. EEWWW!

Personally, I despise bristles. I've seen them attack my clams, even the healthy ones.

Bought a neon dottyback because I was told by a guy at TanksALot that they will eat bristles. Yeah right. I've seen the bristles sticking out of the rocks and the fish is right there, but just swims on by.

 

[PaintGuru]

Bought a neon dottyback because I was told by a guy at TanksALot that they will eat bristles. Yeah right. I've seen the bristles sticking out of the rocks and the fish is right there, but just swims on by.

Surprising...maybe he just hits the really small ones??

 

[jimmie51]

So bristles aren't a good thing then? I bought this tank off of a friend and I honestly don't think he has vaccumed it in a long long time. It was full of detrius. I usually feed once a day and I try to skip one day a week. Not much hits the ground. I have to feed some what agressivly though because my purple and mustard tangs start picking at everything if I don't keep them well fed. Any suggestions on how I can keep them feed with out causing problems?

 

[antwood]

Bristles IMO are pretty good for cleanup. Eat all of the stuff that hits the bottom.

There are a few species that may eat the soft tissues of some corals, but rare.

 

[cmpenney]

AS long as they don't get out of control they are a good thing to have. Usually they aren't a problem as long as the tank is maintained to reduce the amount of food available.

 

[jimmie51]

That makes sense. Thanks guys.

 

[mameloot]

Sea Cucumber

My Aragonite was pretty gross with algea & detritus until I got my sea cucumber. It keeps the bottom well sifted and remarkably clean. I'm really happy with it!

It came as part of a package deal, and I intended to trade it off, until I saw the difference he made.

Yeah, I know it's not the most attractive animal (unless your asthetically into rotting vegtables) but it grows on you. Mine is a pretty lemon yellow, though he may grow out of it as he gets bigger.

I could tell when it was bagged that it would produce a lot of waste, but I haven't noticed any problem to my system.

I'm just a reef newbie, but I highly recomend them for sparkling white aragonite.

mame

 

[Turtle]

Bristle Eaters

I have read that the pseudochromis eats bristles. Anyone have one?

 

[cmpenney]

Arrow crabs do a really good job of eating them.

 

[jimmie51]

Well I was watching my tank just now and I saw a small bristle climing up the glass so I was checking him out. Then out of no where my royal gramma swoops out and blam the worm was fish food. I'm not sure if that is normal or it is just mine, but he looked to be enjoying his breakfast.

 

[ofblong]

springeri dottybacks do eat bristleworms. as well as copepods, amphipods, and anythign else that moves hehe. anyways 99% of bristleworms most of us will ever have in our tanks are very good for the tank. 1% are bad. I had one eat 3 mushrooms before I found it. it was 6" long and 1/2 inch thick. Mattvc wanted it and I sold it too him. well it ate over 20 of his mushrooms before he caught it. when he caught it the thing was over a foot long. those are the bad ones. =]. but like I said most of us will never see a bad bristleworm.

 

[antwood]

Just curious, was this whole thing with Mattvc an experiment gone awry? Or was this just one of those.... "Momentary Lapse of Judgement" things?

Don't get me wrong, I am the king of the lapse. Like pulling the U-tube to clean it while the return pumps are running.. 10g later....

ahh... Ohhh look at the clown with the silver sheen ain't he cute! Bag him up! Tank sat fallow for 5 weeks from brook.

 

[huggydoo]

There is an excellent section in Reef Inverterbrates book on bristle worms, it's very interesting reading. It helps you identify the different types of bristleworms. Most people have a hard time distinguishing the fire worm of this species. And it is very dangerous to your system. Check it out!