Bristle Worm killed my shrimp!!!

[Tiggs]

Watched last night as a bristle worm cralwed onto a blood shrimp and wouldnt let go despite the shrimp trying to pull away several times. The shrimp had gone through a tank swpa and may not have been 100% but he was alive and kicking.

Within 4 hrs he was consumed by main worm and his mates who turned up for the feast.

have read lots of stuff on BW about how they "only eat dead fleah" "wouldnt touch a living animal" ect, ect...........well that rubbish!

T

 

[Navarre]

Most bristleworms are not equiped to fasten onto living creatures and can only "rasp" dead carrion. Thus 99% of bristleworms are safe cleanup crew for your aquarium. I am aware however that some of the more dangerous types could stray into a home aquarium via liverock. This is rare however but it does seem unfortunately that you have one of these wrorm within your system. )

 

[bunjiweb]

Your Shrimp must have been badly injured or half dead already for the worms to come feasting on it. If it wasnt able to defend itself, it sure wasn't alive enough to stop them was it..

If it had just been swapped from another tank did you acclimatise it properly? I fear not....

It is unlikely that you had one of the larger bristleworms in your tank. In the wild there are species which get up to 3 feet long and will eat whatever they can get their bristles on, but coming with the liverock in your tank you are never likely to get one of these species..

Ben

 

[Tiggs]

Your Shrimp must have been badly injured or half dead already for the worms to come feasting on it. If it wasnt able to defend itself, it sure wasn't alive enough to stop them was it..

If it had just been swapped from another tank did you acclimatise it properly? I fear not....

It is unlikely that you had one of the larger bristleworms in your tank. In the wild there are species which get up to 3 feet long and will eat whatever they can get their bristles on, but coming with the liverock in your tank you are never likely to get one of these species..

Ben

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I agree it was not a well shrimp but even so...bit harsh of the worms to not even wait for the little guy to die!!!

 

[steelhealr]

Survival of the fittest. I have a sixline wrasse in my tank who is completely peaceful. They CAN, potentially, go for inverts. The other day I hand fed my cleaner shrimp a piece of flake and the sixline began to harass it for the food, however, at times, I think the attack was changed to the shrimp itself. Things are fine today. The bloodshrimp may have been vulnerable. Tough choice. I'd keep the worms and watch for now if it was my tank. SH

 

[California Ron]

My fish were healthy as horses when they all started disappearing. After many tries at catching the bristleworm we finally did and he was over 8 inches long pictures to prove it. Haven't had a problem since with fish disappearing.

 

[pleder]

I think when bristeworms are small they pose little threat to the system. However these little monsters do grow to be quite large. I have seen pics on RC of a 7' bristleworm. In my own tank I have seen an 18" that was thicker than a cigarette.

I was so worried about then I hypersalinity dipped my lr for 10 minutes to get them to come out. I have tried various other traps but hypersalinity works best IME.

The only time I know of them to cause problems to living things when they are small is if the fish and the bristleworm are going after the same piece of food and the fish accidentaly ingests the worm. That can cause complications with many species.

Also I myself have been "stung" by a bristleworm, the bristles stick in your skin, this has to have some sort of predatory power in regards to other lifeforms and not just stupid humans.

 

[Dragonscales]

Also I myself have been "stung" by a bristleworm, the bristles stick in your skin, this has to have some sort of predatory power in regards to other lifeforms and not just stupid humans.

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It is more likely a self defence mechanism than a true predatory one. Something swims along and trys to eat the bristleworm and cops a nasty sting so spits it back out. The worm takes off to live another day and the fish thinks twice about biting another bristleworm.

If they had evolved to be straight out fish killers I'm sure their mouth would have developed far differently and they would possibly have other means of catching and/or killing fish. That's not to say that the odd bristleworm won't eat a fish if the oportunity was to arise (I have read stories of bristleworms eating fish while asleep in a hole because they refused to move, etc too) but I hardly think that is justification to establish a common norm for all bristleworms.

It is bad enough some of the barbaric acts commited against mantis shrimp because of a stigma attatched to them (seriously, if people don't want them then why not return them or give them to someone who does? Or better yet set up a species tank for them, they don't need much room and are just as cool to watch as any other shrimp, if not more so) without fueling the stigma around bristleworms.