Aquarium Madness

I finally got tired of only being able to put small amounts of phosphate sponge into my cannister filter. Not only is the filter not able to hold as much phosphate sponge as I want to have in there, it is also a pain to disconnect and change on a frequent basis.

So… I decided to order a phosphate reactor. The particular device that I went for was this one, a ViaAqua Poly-Reactor. Yeah. Got it from MarineDepot.com, they seem to be pretty decent.

Plug and play

I wanted this particular unit because it has it’s own pumps and seems to be plug and play. I didn’t want to have to do any plumbing work on my 75 gallon aquarium. Also, I like the idea of being able to remove the unit from the tank easily (if it does it’s job fast and doesn’t need to be hooked up on the tank at all times).

Let it run all the time?

Who knows though, I’ll probably just let it run all the time to keep phosphate levels at a minimum. I guess I can run other types of media in there too, so I can focus on putting the carbon and phosphate sponge in the reactor when needed and then I don’t have to dink around with the cannister filter as much, which is running biological filter media.

The last time I posted about Bristle Worms on this site, I was convinced that I would be catching hundreds of them [slight exageration]. The last times I set the trap, I set it up on the live rocks. The bristle worm trap proved ineffective on the live rocks.

I was able to prop the trap in a way that allowed easy entrance into it. That did not matter. I did not catch any bristle worms.

Removing Live Rock

Just today I decided to go ahead with my plan of stripping all the live rock out of the tank for a major rock/substrate maintenance job. I have been battling red algae in my tank and feel this is the next step in getting that stuff under control.

I started to pull out the chunks of live rock, one by one. I then washed each one thoroughly in the sink. I scrubbed it with a scrub brush and clean out all the crevices. In the crevices I found a lot of BRISTLE WORMS!!

I started to pluck them out and put them onto the counter top after a while. After grossing out my girlfriend, I took a picture of the scavenged bristle worms [the enemy] and ran them down the dish disposal. Haha, take that you wormy little bastards.

I started to realize that I had quite a few more bristle worms in my tank than I imagined. The majority of them were burrowed in and under live rock. I pulled all the live rock from the tank and cleaned it all thoroughly. I then also vacuumed the substrate thoroughly.

In the Substrate

While vacuuming the substrate I also killed a lot of bristle worms. I could tell that they were getting mashed up in the rocks as I vacuumed pretty easily. They must be weak. There was a lot of pieces of bristle worm laying on the substrate after the vacuuming. I then noticed a bunch of my snails go to work. I am assuming my snails will clean up what is left.

Long Term, For Now…

For now I will just go with a few small pieces of live rock and continue to vacuum and clean substrate and rocks on a regular basis. I need to keep the red algae from setting back in.

I will also need to:

• Block the afternoon sunlight from hitting the tank. Even though the tank is strategically placed in another room to prevent sunlight contact, there is still a nice little sliver of light that sneaks through and hits the side of the aquarium. I will have to block that somehow.
• Replace my filter plumbing and create more water currents that I can control. I need to install clean plumbing to battle the algae. I also need to make sure I can create preferential water currents with upgraded water flow control.

I better now get to work.

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.