Fireworms Seen - Help

Last night after the light went off, my daughter used a flash light and was looking at the tank. She noticed something popping its head up out of a hole in the rock. It was thin, had like legs/points along the side. As soon as the light hit it went back into the rock. Looking further I saw another one, much longer on the side of my tank stretching out of a hole of a LR. Doing some research today I have figured them to be Fireworms.
Now, comes my questions. Why do I only see them after the lights go out?
Never saw them before, and even with moving rocks around this weekend.
I have a 90 gal. tank that was set up in May 2007.
How can you use tweesers to remove if they go back in their hole? Without know how many LR are infested with the worms, is there something that can go in the tank to remove them and not hurt my coral, fish and anemomes?
I have 4 chromies, 2 clowns, 1 wrasse, snails, 1 tang, a small clown goby.
What are my options?
Like to use them for bait at the beach - lol

 

First ya gotta figure out what kind of bristleworms they, not all polychaete worms are fireworms. Most of the common bristleworms are beneficial worms. They come out at night to feed on detritus and various other things.

 

Found More Things Moving

I took me a little over an hour to catch just 1 of these worms. From the looks,when they came out of a hole they look a very light brownish/all most flesh looking color. One or two that I saw seems to have a black/smoke color on an end of the worm. They are fast/quick little guys.
Also, while working with a flash light and being sneaky I also saw these little tiny, slow moving creatures that have a rounded top body. And almost looks like a they have tenticals coming out the front of them. One was large, when picked up with tweezers it rolls into some what of a ball.
What else am I looking at?
All this happened about 20/30 minutes after the lights went out. Than at 5 a.m. this morning I see nothing. Like everyone had the party and back sleeping it off.
How do I know which is a good worm and whitch is bad?

 

They may be good for the sand

HI,

most worms are good for sand they help clean the fish poo and keep the water moving thru the top layers of sand, they also eat excess food so a large amoint of worms can indicate over feeding, they will die off if you stop over feeding. Many of the DSB fans like them I actually seeded my tank with 12 during the inital set up and see them moving thru the sand into my pistol shrimps cave I move a rock and find a couple, so
Most things in nature can have positive effects on the exportation of nitrogen and waste as long as it not out of control
Hey i have four Aptasa living in my reforguim in the algae bed any get in the main tank and the shrimp slurp them up.
I even seen a plan for building a aptasa rack in a sump with crates and a water return thru a UV filter to prevent exportation into the tanks.
saltwater has tons of creepy crawly things many are good some arenot.
But don't go over board on the trapping of worms and meds for flatworms unless you see a problem with your critters not doing well.
Doug
I have a few weird looking things on rocks that have been in the tank since day one they put out a single strand that traps food and feeds the tiny little worm he's so big now he has created a little bump on the rock about 1/4 inch across.

 

Thank you Doug for the info.
I did finally take a worm and the other creepy items to the LFS and they told me it was Brissleworms and the other was the start of snails. Guess I'm going to find some things show up now that my tank has been up and running for 7 mos. I've always had a fresh water tank.
Everyone in the tank looks fine. Question : How do I know what is over feeding?
I have about 8 fish, I feed 2 blks.(cubes/frozen) A.M. & P.M. Sometimes a pinch of flakes.

 

What kind of fish are you feeding?

 

Thats a good question about feeding

HI,
I try and only feed what they can eat in a couple mins. washing forzen food can cut the phos load in 1/2 or more due to the water around the food is rich with tissue fluids, some even have stabilzers added that are toxic.
Another trick is I have recirc pumps in the tank that are never turned off, but the returns from the sumps and the canisters are always off a while durin feeding most food will wind up in a filter if they are running during the feeding frenzy, this adds a heavy load on the bacteria and water quality and the animals never eat the food in the pump filters , so when you feed only feed the animals the bacteria and worms will do fine on recycled waste from fish and crabs, if you see alot of the slime algae and constantly see green popping up you may be overfeeding.
I also only allow the skimmer to run when the returns are up. I rely heavily on a lot of sand, base rock that becomes live rock,and a little shoe box of algae in the sump, this helps considerably.
water depth in a sump impares skimmer function its a constant battle to tune the skimmer to water height in the sump if the skimmer is running to low its ineffective to high and you fill the cup with wet foam.
I finally decided to build a automatic water adder that uses a 5 gal jug ,R/o water a vaccum pump and level sense it cost me 50 bucks but it stabilzes the water level in the sump so my skimmer stay pretty level.
Food is a huge topic to cover some foods are fair some are like candy ,others are great all have phos and other things that are added to your water column and difficult to export.
My skimmer tends to tell me if I am over feeding it fills up really fast if there's alot of the nasty stuff in the water but requires a good skimmer many skimmer make to large of bubles that are not skimming anything.
I use alot of sand, sand loving snails, shrimp, and even tangs to clean the rocks.
Most tanks are really septic tanks of bacteria and waste and its a challenege to maintain any real quality water.
I always feed a little green flake daily, that spirella flake with garlic is good for everything and many animals prefer meat to vegies even if its wrong diet for them.
so do alot of research never feed only one group of foods, I try and mix it up alot, talk to people who have experince with keeping your species avoid putting to much faith in your LPS they have issues and goals of a financial nature that may make it difficult to be open and forthright about products.
Visit as many doccumented articles that are written and based on facts arrived after some research studies.
Good luck
and as every one says take it slow test twice before you fix something. and understand even change for the good creates alot of stress for your animals
its better to move slowly towards any goal be it KH or calcium its a very complex equation.
Doug

 

I try to switch the food each day. I feed a Formula A, Mysis shrimp, Blood worms(maybe once a week), Brine shrimp, Algea pellets - and with each feeding I place 4 drops of garlic. I also have the greens for the Tang. I was told I can only have 1 Tang?
I have (4) Chromies, (1) Wrasse, (2) Clowns, (1) Angel, (1) Tang, (1-very small) Clown Goby, (2) Gobies(they are long/thin-like an ell) The black long Gobies hide under the live rocks, they have dug a little hole. I have about 10 hermit crabs and about 8 snails. I have a 90 gal. tank.
And no string algea. I get some algea on the glass every other day, and some brown film on the sand (that I just rack or syphon during water change)
I do have a skimmer - a large one. I also ad some stuff called Purple Up, plus the buffers, and Phy...
I have had my take since May 2007. We all love it, better than a fresh water tank.
Still thank you everyone for your help.

 

that snail was probaly a stomatella snail, i have like 10 and thanks to 3reef i know what it is. IMO it is better than all of the snails you can buy, because it hides during the day, comes out at night, and is a diatom eating beast. wheever i have a small coating of diatoms in the morning on my glass you can see exactly where the little bugger was going. altogether, the estimated ten of them eat like 3 or 4 square feet of diatoms each night.

 

what do they look like, the stomatella snails?