Good or Bad Bristles? ouch

[heavydc2]

Anyoen know if these bristles are the ones that like to eat zoos, I found all of these on one rock... the hard way.

 

[seasno]

Neat colors Dave....quite different than the ones I have. Mine are more red.

 

[reefsmurf]

Scary.. best bet is to probably ask Dr. Shimek (?) on RC

 

[Tstone]

Are you missing Zoo's?? Bristles will live in the rock work and congregate together sometimes.
I had a small rock about the size of a baseball once that was like a condo community. Bristles crawling in and out of it everywhere.

 

[One Eye]

Mine are more red to. Do your's look like that or is that from the camera?

 

[Groove]

Those are the ones I have and they haven't touched my zoas in the three years I've had them.

 

[jackie]

I looked them up in Calfo and Fenner's Reef Invertabrates book when I found some in my tank and they're actually fire worms and harmful to a reef tank. You can see them at night once the tank lights are out and easy to grab. I also found a couple huge ones (a foot long!) on a piece of live rock that I could take out of the tank and put in a container of SW and dosed it with flatworm exit. Within seconds it came out of the rock and I flushed them down the toilet....

 

[heavydc2]

Thats the color they are, I did not use a flash with them. I think I might just flush them. I have plenty of other bristles in the tank that are smaller, and I am sure there are more of these too. That was the first time I have been stung by a bigger one, man it sure does sting at first. the quils were bigger then I thought.

I could also throw them in the fuge, but there is plenty in there too.

 

[Moe_K]

I had a lot of these exact worms in my 55, and had a ton of zoanthids.
I never saw the bristles harm anything. In the end, I wish the worms would have eaten my polyps. The polyps started overgrowing some of my SPS corals.
I think fireworms are a different species.