# Thin, long, brown worms in my newly set up tank



## Chrisphungg (Oct 8, 2012)

I have long thin brown worms that have just showed up in my tank. I have no idea what they do but when I first saw it, it resembled a piece of poo. I then poked at it with a glass stick and it buried itself under the sand. After that I looked around my tank and saw 2-3 more of them. What are they and how should I go about getting rid of them? Please help Im worried about my fish. The tank is set up for about 8 weeks now.


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

Bristleworm. Harmless scavenger and usually leave fish alone. Don't overfeed and it won't get out of control. Just don't touch it with bare hands or you'll get prickled.


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## macframalama (Apr 17, 2012)

i have seen youtube of these things like 18 inches long...there not good at all , and they can explode out of control very fast ..im not a sw expert but from what i know of them they are not good,


SeaHorse_Fanatic said:


> Bristleworm. Harmless scavenger and usually leave fish alone. Don't overfeed and it won't get out of control. Just don't touch it with bare hands or you'll get prickled.


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

If you overfeed then they will have a population explosion. This is true for most scavengers. I don't like them myself but if you don't overfeed, they will generally stay small and help keep the tank clean. If they were red, then those are Fireworms, which are more predatory in nature and must be caught out. Scavengers only reproduce based on available food source. If there's not a lot of waste food for them, they won't grow too big or too many.

One way to trap them is to use a plastic cup with some food in it that is weighted on the bottom and maybe angled to tempt them out of their holes and into the cup. 

Most sw tanks will have a few of these bristleworms in the rocks. They're ugly and covered with bristles, but some reefers actually seek them out as part of their clean up crew.


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