bristle worms?

[keyozoxmfc]

hi
Has anyone ever had any problems with bristle worms? like them attacking anything?..such as corals and/or clams and/or anenomes?...if so do you know any traps for them?
thanks

[gwen_o_lyn]

to TR!

Bristleworms are great in keeping a reef clean. I wouldn't try to trap them. They cause no harm in my system.

[wwest]

Bristle worms in my opinion are within the grey area, some people like them and others hate them. What i would suggest is trying to keep the population down. They can spread pretty quick. You can buy a trap and use the trap like once a every few months or so depending on how fast they breed. I wouldnt worry about trapping them untill you start seeing the population grow. In small doses they are good for a reef tank..
Here is a link to the trap

Also Welcome to Talking Reef

[Rob]

the reality behind bristle worms is that most all of them are good, and a rare few are bad, these rare few are not commonly found in marine aquaria.

my opinion on them is let them go, like Gwen stated they are great detrivores (clean up) and great to have. i have let mine run ramped for years, never having problems in any of my tanks

one common issue that arises is the assumption that they are eating corals or clams. mane people will get a coral or clam, and it starts to die, something like a clam, will start to die from the inside. well this clam starts to die for whatever reason. The bristle worms senses food from the dead tissue, and the goes in to consume it. when the aquarist appears, and seas a sickly looking clam, with a bunch of bristle worms, they think "OMG, there eating my clam". when in fact hey are simply eating the ALREADY dead tissue. now in a case like this there presence my spark further degradation, and irritation, but there are only there because of a pre-existing cause of the clams demise, not because they are clam eaters...

HTH