High Tide Aquatics

Med to kill off bristleworms?

phc567 said:
I remember back in the day someone asked this question also. They said to put your rock up on a PVC platform. Bare bottom and feed food to the bottom of the tank at night the Bristol worms will come out to get the food but they won’t be able to go back up into a rock because it’s on a platform. They didn’t say how high.
I never tried it tho.
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I have heard similar PVC hints, but not that it was because they would get stuck.
The idea was that with that setup, the detritus would accumulate in the corners of the tank, and be easy to clean,
instead of under the rocks where it is ideal habitat for the worms.
 
What if… you keep two large traps?
One always in the tank, and one ready to go.
Keep swapping them every few days?

I say this because I don’t like adding chemicals to the tank. But then again, my experience in this hobby is still in its infancy.
 
rygh said:
Can you explain your setup more? People might have better advice.
Because I thought you said it was a dedicated tank, which makes almost everything possible.
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It’s a 20g tank with every surface covered with Aiptasia, large 3D printed bio balls to give more surface area for Aiptasia, a relatively small amount of Seachem matrix for the bacteria, no sand or live rock or anything else. Heater, small power head, air pump, no other filtration. No lights. No other species allowed in the tank. I feed a crap ton of live baby brine shrimp for the Aiptasia frequently. Water is dirty by reef standards but not terrible because the Aiptasia are growing. I do 100% water changes when needed.

I’ve already considered all the usual advice for bristleworms in a full reef tank. The number of worms isn’t that bad and I just remove them manually when I see them since they can’t really hide well. I was trying to think out of the box for an additive that would kill them but not the Aiptasia or bacteria, the main advantage I was trying to take advantage of here is that I don’t care if the additive is toxic to something you would normally have in a reef tank but I don’t have here, in other words something that is not reef safe might be fine here- No fish, no sensitive inverts, no sensitive coral, etc.

My question really is just if anyone knows from personal experience if a) PraziPro kills bristleworms, and b) if anything else you’ve used for something else kills them. If there’s no easy answer, that’s fine I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing.
 
thesassyindian said:
What if… you keep two large traps?
One always in the tank, and one ready to go.
Keep swapping them every few days?

I say this because I don’t like adding chemicals to the tank. But then again, my experience in this hobby is still in its infancy.
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Yeah just to be clear, I wouldn’t be doing or even considering putting in an additive to kill the bristleworms in my reef tank. I do have too many bristleworms in my reef tank and I more or less live with it, sometimes just manually siphoning them out. My question was really a special case situation. I hope no one comes along thinking otherwise.
 
JVU said:
It’s a 20g tank with every surface covered with Aiptasia, large 3D printed bio balls to give more surface area for Aiptasia, a relatively small amount of Seachem matrix for the bacteria, no sand or live rock or anything else. Heater, small power head, air pump, no other filtration.
Click to expand...

This sounds awesome! Can you share a picture to satisfy my curiosity?
 
JVU said:
It’s a 20g tank with every surface covered with Aiptasia, large 3D printed bio balls to give more surface area for Aiptasia, a relatively small amount of Seachem matrix for the bacteria, no sand or live rock or anything else. Heater, small power head, air pump, no other filtration. No lights. No other species allowed in the tank. I feed a crap ton of live baby brine shrimp for the Aiptasia frequently. Water is dirty by reef standards but not terrible because the Aiptasia are growing. I do 100% water changes when needed.

I’ve already considered all the usual advice for bristleworms in a full reef tank. The number of worms isn’t that bad and I just remove them manually when I see them since they can’t really hide well. I was trying to think out of the box for an additive that would kill them but not the Aiptasia or bacteria, the main advantage I was trying to take advantage of here is that I don’t care if the additive is toxic to something you would normally have in a reef tank but I don’t have here, in other words something that is not reef safe might be fine here- No fish, no sensitive inverts, no sensitive coral, etc.

My question really is just if anyone knows from personal experience if a) PraziPro kills bristleworms, and b) if anything else you’ve used for something else kills them. If there’s no easy answer, that’s fine I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing.
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Ok, understand.
So in theory, you could switch to dosing very few baby brine, and instead dose nitrate/phosphate (and even add small lights).
Basically : Model the tank around an ideal Aptasia habitat, instead of an ideal bristleworm habitat. The natural approach.
I can totally see why you would not want to of course, and that it might not fix the problem anyway.
But I was confused when you implied it was impossible.
 
I asked a fish vet and there is no Rx you can use to eradicate bristleworms *that they know of* From experience Prazi doesn’t kill them.

I wonder if you could try high/low salinity or temps (if aptasia can survive different environments than the bristleworms). The issue is what conditions the bristleworm eggs can survive I suppose.

*edit
 
In the past when reading up on interceptor for redbug/parasitic copepod treatment, a number of people mentioned "all the worms were dead" after treating. I think this is at a fairly high dose, which might be fine here. I have never personally seen it kill worms though.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure the Dr. G dip has Milbemycin Oxime in it, which is the active ingredient in interceptor....
 
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Meshmez said:
In the past when reading up on interceptor for redbug/parasitic copepod treatment, a number of people mentioned "all the worms were dead" after treating. I think this is at a fairly high dose, which might be fine here. I have never personally seen it kill worms though.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure the Dr. G dip has Milbemycin Oxime in it, which is the active ingredient in interceptor....
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Nice pickup! I didn’t realize they were the same active ingredient
 
Again, take this for what it is, a post from someone random on the interwebs
Screenshot_20220203-195501_Chrome.jpg
 
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Meshmez said:
I don't think Dr g advertises the ingredients, but that's what I remember reading. Not sure how anyone got the ingredients list.
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Their website used to list milbemycin oxime as the main ingredient but doesn’t anymore. But they did say it kills bristleworms back when they had it listed.
 
Meshmez said:
In the past when reading up on interceptor for redbug/parasitic copepod treatment, a number of people mentioned "all the worms were dead" after treating. I think this is at a fairly high dose, which might be fine here. I have never personally seen it kill worms though.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure the Dr. G dip has Milbemycin Oxime in it, which is the active ingredient in interceptor....
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They probably used the standard dog Interceptor containing milbemycin plus praziquantel if they saw worms dying. Unfortunately neither Milbemycin or Prazi will kill off bristleworms.
 
Chromis said:
They probably used the standard dog Interceptor containing milbemycin plus praziquantel if they saw worms dying. Unfortunately neither Milbemycin or Prazi will kill off bristleworms.
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What makes you say Milbemycin won’t kill them? Experience? Theory?
 
Experience, and as a vet explained to me Milbemycin targets critters with a chitinous “shell”, and works by disrupting their ability to form new chitin. I believe this excludes bristleworms/polychaete worms. The critters Milbemycin targets, according to Wikipedia, are Arthropoda which do seem to fit the definition of having a “shell” of sorts.
 
rygh said:
1) Starve them out.
Aptasia only need a tiny bit of zooplankton. Worms eat detritus.
Clean out all the detritus.
So put in only a tiny bit of food, but dose amino acids, nitrates, and phosphates.
Then add lots of flow, and filter socks.
Presumably it is already bare bottom.

2) Eliminate their habitat
Replace all rock with PVC pipes.
No good place to hide. Plus, no good place for detritus to settle.
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I like your tips for real tank.
 
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