ID: Centipede-like Monster in my tank

[planted86]

my dear bro u need to remove it immediately. its a bristle worm. its lives in rocks and feeds on your fishes, corals and what ever u have in your tank....

1. its most active in the night. so u need to look for it when the lights are off. a dim torch light will do u good. use a pair of gloves and tong to catch it, if not see which rocks it runs to and remove that rock. soak it in fresh water till it comes out.

tips: it stings, so wear gloves at all times. my hand swelled for 2 days.
if theres one theres more, most prob from the live rocks or corals. ( the need to cure rocks before starting your tank)

hope this helps

p.s i removed a 3ft long as thick as your thumb, from a tank once. real scarry

only a few species of bristleworm eat fishes. actually they are beneficial to the system as they scavenge leftover food but it will leave bristle all over the place twhen it move around...

from what blackghost describe its a bobbit worm(Eunice aphroditois) and yes like fishsoup mention, its predatory and will eat fish... a bobbit worm which is 1inch in diameter can be as long as 50ft long(longest ever recorded in the wild). becareful when you want to catch them out as they have 5 big pincer that is capable of catching a fish that is 4inches long.

o2bubble actually marine is not that scary, its quite interesting. once you step into the world of marine you will be mesmerised by them..

as for removing bristle worm there are quite a no. of wrasse that eat bristle worm.. how big is your lionfish??

below is a site about bristle worm
http://www.reefcorner.com/SpecimenSh...ristleworm.htm

[blackghost]

about 5-8cm


so... should i let it be??

[planted86]

maybe you can find a adult green wrasse or yellow wrasse(both are cheap and good ) to control the bristle worm... you can't possibly remove all the bristle worm unless you take out all the sand and rocks then leave them out of water till its dry... or cook the rocks and sand and filter media...

see if you can locate the bobbit worm's cave.. i'm not very sure on how to catch them.. i tried pulling them out with a pincer( tried alot of time then got it) only manage to break it can't pull it out...

[ssathesh]

the best way if u can wait, is to remove all livestock and corals, and starve your tank. after 7 days, get a market prawn put it in stockings. the kind that women wear. very think and comes in shades of brown and black. leave it one night and see what u get.

[blackghost]

hey guys.

i just started a new smaller tank and was cycling them with two fishes.

i found out something valuable.. i bought 30 cents worth of cockles thinking that i can keep them..

bad mistake. after two days they started dying. didnt realise this after a week. as they way they died almost looked like they are alive. the shell half-open..

so.. they decomposed and fouled up the water.. i was looking around and seems like all lifestock has died. including the tubeworms.

only this weekend i've got time to clean it up. and i realised that i had so many bristle worms dead on the tank floor.

now i've removed the liferocks and adding freshwater to it. to kill off any hitchhikers before restarting my tank.

even though my tank wiped. i learnt a valuable lesson that curing liverocks before adding it in is really important

[BFG]

Liverock immersed in freshwater will not become 'live' . You should however 'cook' the live rock for a couple of month or 3 so that all the nasty hitchhiker might die due to the unavailability of food for them to consume.

[ssathesh]

i also made this mistake once... placed a mussel i found at the beach in my sump tank. the next morning, water cloudy.. 50% water change and all back to normal..

oh live rock best if can cure in your tank for 4 to 6 weeks...

[blackghost]

oh okay.

deed is done =(

will try to take to get a new liverocks to seed the ones that have already been submerged with freshwater
really is astonished to see so so so many things that came out of the liverocks. not only the bristleworms..
they died due to the small tank and water fouling up
however, this was before the freshwater treatment.. got a little "kiasu" and scared

[jonas83]

Will this worms breed in the tank? I caught one, but managed to slice it into half. One part I use to feed my arowana, the other escape. Don't know go where liao. Is it considered death?

[BFG]

When you'll find one, probably there will be others as there is a chance that there might be eggs in there too.

[ssathesh]

Will this worms breed in the tank? I caught one, but managed to slice it into half. One part I use to feed my arowana, the other escape. Don't know go where liao. Is it considered death?

well the escaped part will recover and continue its carnage....



pls pls pls cure your live rocks!!!! how?

set up as per normal.... like how u would for a new tank. rocks lights sea water and all.

let the tank run for 4 - 6 weeks.. longer the better. with no lights. u will see your skimmer working overtime....

once your skimmer becomes quite.. add another 2 weeks and your tank is cured..

[blackghost]

thanks bros

really useful information. i guess, you wont learn something new until you make a mistake