Bristleworm trap

A lot of people say they're good for the tank and they don't harm anything etc. I just recently acquired a few as hitchhikers (not fireworms) and let them stay because supposedly "they're benefical" and last night I saw one destroying a snail along with a hermit crab. I believe the snail was moving around just fine before it was attacked in a part of the rock where it could not get out fast enough to escape it's immanent death.

Has anyone tried the method of cutting an X in the top of a food container and putting food in it?

 

Me too! Keep it simple is my motto!


P.S. To the person above ... you do not 'own' or buy this trap. There's probably some miscommunication in my post. The 'trap' is simply any clear flexible pvc tubing that's about 6+ feet long that you have laying around! You put loose floss a few inches inside the tube, followed by bait, followed by another piece of loose floss to hold it.

Position the end of the tube near at a quiet corner in the neighborhood of the nasties. One benefit is that you can position the end of the tube into tight dark spaces where nasties like to hide.

How in the world could anything nasty ignore the wonderful smell of some rotting piece of bait?

Check it late at night.

When you open the clamp, the siphon sucks it all (nasties included which are mostly tangled in the floss) into your siphon bucket.

Easy breezy.

 

I had one of those bristleworm traps and only caught little starfish in mine! I haven't seen a bristleworm since we got the six-line wrasse many months ago, though I've seen the wrasse carrying around bristleworm "pieces."

 

I've never removed a bristleworm intentionally from any of my tanks in over fifteen years now.
The kinds we normally see in our tanks will only go for dead and dying material.
They get the blame for things when they are caught around a coral feeding off decaying flesh that is still too small for us to see. As for snails, if it is dying but not yet dead, they will go for those also.
The odds of getting a "problem" species of bristleworm are next to nil.