Live rock infested

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

pcdebb

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Jun 17, 2012
Messages
682
Location
Brandon, FL
Hello all. I'm in the process of setting up a tank. 30 gallons, I have no fish yet but have been slowly adding rock. I bought two pieces of rock last week and immediately noticed one of the rocks had bristleworms and fireworms coming out ever hole in the rock. I was advised to remove the rock and did a freshwater dip to get rid of them. I sprayed that rock with water and have literally had hundreds of them come out. I checked the second rock that i bought and it too has bristleworms in it. Not as much as the first one tho. Only rocks left in the tank are the ones I started with (4 pieces) and I've seen a couple of worms.

Should I get rid of all the rock? Or should I get something that will eat them? I've had salt talks before and never experienced bristleworms before. Googling gives different answers as to them being good or bad.

Thank you for any advice.
 
A 6 line wrasse would make short work of them, but in reality the amount of bristleworms in a tank will go hand in hand with how much you are feeding. Having large amounts and huge ones will tell you that there is too much food going into the system.
At the end of the day, these worms are good guys to have as they are part of your clean up crew. If it is something that you simply can't live with, then you'll have to take all the rock out and do a freshwater dip for them to try to get rid of all of them, which is what you have already been told about.
 
A 6 line wrasse would make short work of them, but in reality the amount of bristleworms in a tank will go hand in hand with how much you are feeding. Having large amounts and huge ones will tell you that there is too much food going into the system.
At the end of the day, these worms are good guys to have as they are part of your clean up crew. If it is something that you simply can't live with, then you'll have to take all the rock out and do a freshwater dip for them to try to get rid of all of them, which is what you have already been told about.

Thank you very much. I guess then the store was severely overfeeding, my tank is empty of any fish. I freaked out and was initially told they were very bad and to rid of them immiediately. Are the rock safe to put back in? I'm worried that some are still in the rock (dead) and will mess with parameters
 
Yea I know. I still have the 5 pieces of rock i started with and recently added these two pieces. I haven't seen anymore and the cycle is still good. All parameters are still good. I will slowly add a few CUC this weekend. I was just freaked out being i've never had this problem before.
 
Back
Top Bottom