Guest Keyoke April 9, 2005 Share April 9, 2005 I've been down in Arkansas these past 3 or 4 days attending a wedding for a childhood friend of mine. I happend to just get back into town & figured I'd peek at the tank, even though it's about 1am and the lights have been off for a good long while.. And lo and behold, there is the BIGGEST flipping bristle worm I've _ever_ seen in my tank. It's easily 8 to 10" long, and mighty thick too. Streched out on the sand up against the front glass. This is a new tank, 90G, no sump (yet) just out of the cycling phase. The only livestock is about a dozen small narsissus snails, a handful of blue legged hermits, a 'fighting' conch, and whatever hitched a ride in on the 30 or so lbs of LR I have in the tank at the moment. I think there's some sort of anenome (actually two of them) in the tank (dunno what they are, purplish though kinda clear, with white coloring in the middle), a couple of orange-centered zo's, and some of the "looks like zo's on steroid polyp thingies" that are purple, handful of macro (c.ramosa, c.taxifolia). -- if anyone can id that anenome thing, I'd appreciate it too.. but I digress.. I'm just out of the cycling phase for this last batch of LR (going to add another 30LBs or so later this month), and things are looking _really_ good. Macro's are growing like the dirty little weeds they are (I'll see a whole new frond on c.taxifolia sprout in a single day!), the Zo's appear healthy, the yellow/green/white/blue and lavender sponges are spreading like mad (I thought sponges were hard to take care of?) The tank is overrun with pods (BIG suckers too!), and even teeny little brown jelly fish are swiming around.. But there is a ton of these bristles running around I've noticed, ranging in size from maybe a 1/4th inch or so, up to this big-granddaddy... which I am _not_ picking up with my hands by the way - the flipping thing is scary looking, looks like it could eat a finger.. rasp the tip down to the bone! Anyway, I'm wondering how many bristles are too many? How big is too big? I did some searching on wetweb media and other sites, and I don't find a whole lot on the darn things when it comes to the 'yay' or 'nay' factor. Lots of info on how to remove 'em, nuttin on when you need to start, or which ones to target. I know these are 'good' critters to have, but that they can turn into a problem if they start to run out of dead things to munch on.. Bright orange upper quarter (head side) of the body, black or dark brown for the other 3/4ths, white bristles that don't seem to be too long.. man I wish I had a camera... anyway they don't appear to be the dreaded 'fireworm', it's a standard polycheate worm is what I'm guessing... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Keyoke April 9, 2005 Share April 9, 2005 8" to 10" might be a bit of an exageration, 6" to 7" is probably closer.. it's longer than the distance of the start of my wrist to the tip of my middle finger by about another half inch or so.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaryL April 9, 2005 Share April 9, 2005 ive got a monster about the size your talking about. it doesnt seem to bother anything. i have not found too many others either. they eat detritus (sp?) as long as there are not too many compeating for space they usually don't bother anything IME. I think when you notice them in the day time you might have a problem with too many. HTH gary try to get a shot of it. i have had my tank up for about a yearand only saw it 3 times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emissary April 10, 2005 Share April 10, 2005 I found one in my tank some years back right when I was moving out of my condo into a house. I was a novice at the time... was pulling rock out and wrapping it in wet newspaper to move it over -- without gloves on. Pulled out this one rock and almost dropped it when the darn thing started lifting itself out of the rock. I swear it was about 12" long. Crazy. I gave it to my LFS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grav April 10, 2005 Share April 10, 2005 I've seen some big ones and never had a problem. However not 8 inches Where did you get this rock? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelg April 14, 2005 Share April 14, 2005 It probably came in some of the rock you snagged from me. FWIW. Yeah I had some big ass worms in the tanks. Freaked me out on a regular basis..... I can not say there were any resulting casualties though. Laughing at the goodies all of you guys are finding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Keyoke April 14, 2005 Share April 14, 2005 Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly where it came from. Man I can't believe the size of some of those worms. It's scary. I've been trying to catch the sucker out at night so I can get a pic, but I can never get a clear shot of him. It's a monster though, that's for sure! FWIW, that rock was da bomb. Now if only I could find more of it. The sponges have just taken off, the little green/orange centerd Zo's and whatever this thing is (it's purple, and there's lots of them in little clumps): are doing great, and at night there are so many "bugs" that the rocks look actually alive at night. High strung little buggers, some of 'em are really big too... That rock is like .. well... it's like Marion Bradley's Downtown Hotel smokey-time treat, I'm jones'n for some more now... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grav April 16, 2005 Share April 16, 2005 WHERE DID YOU GET THE ROCK!!>!?!?!?! sorry I'm all hyped up on goofballs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Keyoke April 17, 2005 Share April 17, 2005 WHERE DID YOU GET THE ROCK!!>!?!?!?! sorry I'm all hyped up on goofballs 29720[/snapback] I got it from a guy in MD. Drove up there one night after callin and tellin him I wanted $50 worth.. There were a lot of people there, got a baggie of "sand" from him too, good stuff that was. I got a heck of a jumpstart on DSB critter population from one scoop of that nice dark mud. I was one of the .. uh.. vultures I guess you could call us, that swooped in and picked up some goodies when MicahelG was doing his teardown.. if I coul donly find more, now that the tank is cycled, I'm afraid to add anything from a LFS or mail order because it won't be cured, and I don't have a holding tank to cure it for 3 weeks in... I've only got 30 or 40lbs in a 90. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeltwayBandit April 21, 2005 Share April 21, 2005 I got it from a guy in MD. Drove up there one night after callin and tellin him I wanted $50 worth.. There were a lot of people there, got a baggie of "sand" from him too, good stuff that was. I got a heck of a jumpstart on DSB critter population from one scoop of that nice dark mud. I was one of the .. uh.. vultures I guess you could call us, that swooped in and picked up some goodies when MicahelG was doing his teardown.. if I coul donly find more, now that the tank is cycled, I'm afraid to add anything from a LFS or mail order because it won't be cured, and I don't have a holding tank to cure it for 3 weeks in... I've only got 30 or 40lbs in a 90. 29738[/snapback] If you don't mind taking time, you can do a pice or two at a time of uncured rock. You should have enough biomass in there to handle any small cycle from the new rock without too much/any spike in your ammonia. The only problem, as with any new rock, is potential nuisance hitchikers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Folta April 21, 2005 Share April 21, 2005 About three weeks ago Keyoke and I (and dbartco) went to Dr. Macs, at which point I picked up some liverock. I've had it curing in a bin since then. Last night I decided it was time to put these pieces in the tank. There were three pieces, I'd say about 7 lbs each, so overall percentage of my tank's rocks they would be about... 15-20%. I had been testing the water and doing water changes in the bin I had been curing them in. Ammonia was off the chart, I was still registering some nitrites but I decided the biomass from the tank would be enough to compensate. I'm not sure if it was a good idea to put them in yet! :/ I woke up this morning to seeing my clowns and flame angel not looking so hot. I stupidly left without checking paramters or doing a water change (already running late for work), and right now I'm kicking myself over it. I'm freaked out that by the time I get home (around 6-7 pm) that they will be dead. :( And I can't even get there on my lunch break as I work an hour away, and have meetings throughout the afternoon. Man, I'm not very good at this reefing thing so far. Edit : by ammonia off the chart, I mean that it was no longer registering as present. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Folta April 22, 2005 Share April 22, 2005 Figured I'd give a quick update for anyone who read that... all three fish look like they are doing great! They are picking at the live rock, swimming around like normal, etc. Doing a water change now, and will check parameters after that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaryL May 1, 2005 Share May 1, 2005 hers a pick of my bristle worm, fed 'em miricle grow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest clownfish4 May 1, 2005 Share May 1, 2005 Here is a six foot worm, although it is not a bristle. http://www.oregonreef.com/sub_worm.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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