bristle worms, live rock

[MotorCityBadBoy]

Im about to add live rock to my tank. I have a $250 credit at my local pet store and the rock goes for about 4 bucks a pound. needless to say I'm a little worried with the quantity of rock due to a critter called the bristle worm....Friend or foe? Should i go out of my way to hunt these worms down or just proceed as normal? Thanks in advance!

[cloak]

They are good to have. Some people go to specific sites to buy bristle worms as a reef janitor.

[LiveRound69]

Bristleworms are actually beneficial to your tank. They break down the uneaten fish food and poo into particles that your corals can eat. They also scrub the pores they crawl thru in the live rock thus allowing better flow to the nitifying bacteria.

[reefworm]

THANKS for asking first! Lots of folks act on misinformation and try to trap out/destroy the critters. As the others have said, they're beneficial members of your clean up crew.

And...

WELCOME TO RC! :D

[MotorCityBadBoy]

Thanks for the info guys! I feel my stress level going down already!

[jenglish]

Let me just say the VAST majority of the family is good, theres a few bad apples that may predate and be a pain. Of course they need to be pretty big before you can really identify them by their head structures. If you get one that is a 5 incher or so then it doesn't hurt to check it out. But if we busted out the magnifying glasses and the tweezers for every bristleworm we saw we would never get any sleep ;) WHen I see a large amount of bristles in my tank I do ask myself, "what have these guys been eating?" as a spike in the number of any detritovore makes me cautious there may be an abundance of food for them. But for the most part I don't really worry.