Aquarium Madness

I’ve been trapping Bristle Worms for 3 nights in a row now. Each night I put the trap into a different sector of the fish tank.

Whenever I first drop the trap into the tank for the night the Nasarrias Snails swarm the trap. But they can’t get in. After about an hour the Snails give up. The next morning I remove the trapped Bristle Worms from the tank and clean out the trap.

Ongoing Trappings

I’m thinking I’ll probably keep pulling 5-10 bristle worms from the tank each night. I’ve been trapping Bristle Worms in each part of the tank so far that I have set up the trap.

I still have lots of aquarium real estate that hasn’t been part of the trapping festivities yet. I will catch more Bristle Worms.

I’ve recently found Bristle Worms in my 75 gallon aquarium. This is not good. I assume an aquarium is likely to have bristle worms at some point, but it’s also not something I want to see in mine. I have no need for them that I know of. They must be destroyed.

Setting a Bristle Worm Trap

I’ve set up a bristle worm trap. I actually just bought a cheap plastic trap from a store. It’s working good. I’m going to put the bristle worm trap in different areas of the tank each night for several consecutive nights. This will give me the ability to see where I have the most Bristle Worms. If I happen to get them all right away, that’s even better.

I’ve already had the bristle worm trap in action for two nights in a row the first night I put the trap on the left end of the tank. I netted about 9 bristle worms that were about 1/2 inch to 1 inch long each. I put the trap on the right side of the tank the next night. I netted 5 bristle worms about the same size as the night before.

Tonight’s Trapping Plans

Tonight I’m going to put the bristle worm trap back into the live rock more. I’m hoping to get more bristle worms near the areas with more live rock. I actually hope that I have gotten them all already, but that is probably not the case.

I’ve been battling some red algae issue in my 75 gallon salt water tank recently. I’m thinking of removing a large portion of the live rock from my tank.

The main reasoning for doing this is that I figure the live rock is the one part of the tank that I have a hard time cleaning or keeping clean. I can’t seem to get any of my bottom feeding critters to do much with the red algae. The bottom feeders eat everything in the tank but the one thing that I do not want to have in the tank.

Pulling the live rock from the tank would allow me to completely clean the substrate over the course of a couple weeks. I’d clean the substrate slowly. I might just pull maybe 80% of my live rock only. That way I can keep a few pieces in the the tank for fish to hide around. It’d also be easier to maintain.

I just don’t want to stress the fish too much.

I’ve just looked into my dark tank (the lights are off) and there are three snails swarming on the Halloween Hermit Crab’s shell.

I just noticed that the Halloween Hermit Crab had gone into hiding earlier. I am under the impression that this hermit crab is molting at the moment. I figure if the hermit crab is molting, the snail probably can’t get to it because of it’s shell.

Killer Snails

Could the snails possibly have gotten the Blue Knuckle Hermit Crab? I hope not. But they may have. This is some interesting behavior within my tank right now.

All this stuff just creates more questions about the happenings inside my tank. I don’t get any answers. It’s kinda like watching Lost.