Having trouble with my saltwater tank

[LivLaughSmileLov]

Hello all! My name is Mandy I am new(er) to the joy of saltwater tanks. I have always loved them and thought they were so spectacular. My boyfriend and I have one (was established by him prior to us getting together 1.5 years ago) and we are having a lot of trouble with bristle worms. They have taken over the whole tank. We are so worried we will have to start all over (which is what the pet store told us may be our only option) I thought before we take that leap that maybe others who have had trouble with them may be able to give us some insight. I will post pictures when I figure out how (I've never blogged before)

 

[cracker]

Hello Mandy, welcome to reef sanctuary ! This is a great place for beginners like us. I think a few bristle worms are good for the tank. A whole bunch, I'm not sure. what do You mean by"taking over" ?
any way I'm sure the experts here will help You with this bristle take over.

 

[LivLaughSmileLov]

Image

• LivLaughSmileLov
• Feb 1, 2016

Worms

 

[LivLaughSmileLov]

They are everywhere! So, so very many of them. All of our snails and hermit crabs that we get die off shortly after we put them in the tank. The man at the fish store told us that these worms are killing them.

 

[cracker]

wow , I see a lot in that pic. Is this the pic of your sand bed? What does it consist of?

 

[Desmond]

Is that gravel you have in there ? How much do you feed the tank ?Overfeeding only helps them to keep multiplying. You could try to get fish or shrimps that can eat them.
six line wrasse will eat them if you got one but they can be aggressive towards other fish. You could also get a coral banded shrimp they also eat them.Dotty backs will also eat them but they are super agressive to other fish and could cause war. What size is your tank and what fish do you have ?How often do you feed ?

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

to ReefSanctuary, a real Sanctuary of reef forums, with lots of very nice members

Start a tank thread & share your tank with us so we can follow along, we love pics

bristle worms are good members of the cuc (clean up crew) think of them like earthworms of the sea, they eat debris that gets back in the rock where snails and crabs can't reach

as for their numbers... they will increase & decrease based on how much food is available

Your most likely ... are overfeeding Let us know the size of your tank, how many fish you have & what kinds, what you feed, how much you feed & how often, then we can give you some good advise that will help !

 

[LivLaughSmileLov]

We currently have only one fish and it is a clownfish. We had two but one day he just disappeared and was never to be seen again. We figured maybe he laid under a rock and died. As for the over feeding, we drop pellets into the water one by one for the fish to come and eat. When it looks like Mr. Clown loses interest, we stop. But! Roughly every other weekend we have my boyfriends daughter and she loves to feed the fish. (Especially when we aren't in the room haha) so if over feeding is a problem it may be from her love of feeding our little buddy. She is 7 so I believe just "misplacing" the food when she is here might be worth a try

 

[LivLaughSmileLov]

We had gotten an arrow crab and 3 peppermint shrimp at the fish store to try and battle our insane amount of worms. After the arrow crab dismembered every last shrimp he mysteriously disappeared also. We had polyps and they also shriveled up. Our one clown and sea urchin are the only two things left. Our tank is 60 gallons. About as tall as it is wide

 

[LivLaughSmileLov]

Yes, our base of our tank is all gravel. We don't have a sump either

 

[DaveK]

Yes, I'd say you have something of a bristle worm problem due to the numbers of them. However, you really don't have a disaster on your hands. Small ones are actually good in a tank, and you really on need to worry about large ones.

I have a question for you, how large is your tank and what kind of filtration system, including skimmer, do you have on the tank?

 

[LivLaughSmileLov]

Excuse the filth of my tank right now. We had pretty much given up on it for the past several months because we literally thought our tank was just done for. The pet store guy said we had fireworms and start over. Ugh. Our tank is 60 gallons. about 30 inches wide in the front and from base of the tank to very top it is 25 inches tall with a depth of 18 inches

 

[PSU4ME]

+1 to Dave, how big is the tank?

I'd like to know more about the tank but I think you'd benefit from replacing your current substrate with a 2-4" sand bed. The size of your current gravel allows food and detritus to get trapped and this is what attracts the worms.

A nice coris wrasse will help control that population too! Although changing out the sabdbed will remove s lot as well.

 

[LivLaughSmileLov]

The filter sits on the side of the tank and is a Penguin BIO-Wheel 350

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Here how you go so many... I would guess... and one thing you have got to control to fix the problem

But! Roughly every other weekend we have my boyfriends daughter and she loves to feed the fish. (Especially when we aren't in the room haha) so if over feeding is a problem it may be from her love of feeding our little buddy.

 

[LivLaughSmileLov]

Oh boy! Switching that out should be fun! Our clown is a feisty little bugger. He bites us when we try to do anything around the tank. I always laughed at my boyfriend when we were cleaning the tank because of how jumpy and scared of the clownfish he is... Until the day he actually got him so good he had a little blood spot on his finger

 

[LivLaughSmileLov]

Right on Nano! I have moved the fish food far away from the tank to avoid any more unwanted feedings.

 

[PSU4ME]

Clownfish are feisty! You have a very low bio load so I think the over feeding could be a main issue. That substrate is a big problem IMO. Also, flow in the tank, how does that look? Low flow allows things to settle where high flow keeps things suspended allowing the mechanical filtration to remove it

 

[LivLaughSmileLov]

I would say it is a pretty low flow at this point. Our lack of cleaning and keeping up with the tank once we thought it was doomed has most likely taken a huge toll on it. I plan on doing a water change and some cleaning up later tonight when my boyfriend gets home (my hand isn't about to be clownfish dinner haha)

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

+1 ^

Siphoning it out like 1/3 at a time over a numbers of weeks & replacing with a good aragonite sand, imo would really help too !