Bristle worms! oh man

I was looking at my tank today, it's a 100 gallon..its been running for more than a year, and today i noticed bristle worms all coming out of the live rock and spitting white stuff everywhere?? ive never seen this and was wondering if anyone knew what this crap was?

 

Welcome to 3reef.

Does not sound familiar to me either, never had a bristle worm do that.

Have you treated the tank with anything?

Please post an image if able.

 

Are you sure it's not stomatella snails

 

No I haven't treated the tank with anything..and I watched a couple bristle worms come out of the live rock and just spit white liquid everywhere...almost all the bristle worms were doing this.

 

I believe that bristle worms spawn in this manner. I remember a few threads where people witnessed the same in their tanks.

 

That could be,I tried looking it up and couldn't find any information about it...I have a ton of bristle worms in my tank..I have no clue how to get rid of them.

 

They are beneficial. They consume waste that may otherwise pollute a tank with ammonia and nitrates.

 

Feed less.

Populations will wax and wane with available food source. Newer tanks (newly cycled) tend to have higher populations of bristle worms. Tanks that have fish that need frequent feedings have higher populations. Once the available food source declines so does the population of bristle worms.

Bristle worms are an excellent part of a the clean up crew though.

Bristle worms reproduce in a couple of manners I suppose, one of those is the epitoke stage.

Worm Hitch Hikers
Polychaete Annelid Identification, or

Probably TMI.