i am looking into my tank at night with my red light and I am seeing alot of white strands that seem to be coming out of strands of sand attached to my live rock. I believe I also saw a bristleworm.
The bristleworm appears to be very small (maybe about an inch)
Is this normal?
It seems everything comes to life at night time in the tank. Quite interesting to watch! =)
the strands are probably spagetti worms, and the bristle worms are good to a point. they get SO big that IMO, they should be removed when they reach a length of about 6".
They are a form of spaghetti worm and are beneficial to be sure. I have several kinds in my tanks and sometimes they all come out at feeding time. The first time i fed squid I thought i had a spider problem! LOL Some of them have grey and black stripes on the filaments and some are just clearish. They have different diameters of the filaments. Keep looking you will see several kinds. I even have some that make tiny sand columns from the sand and put out their feelers and when they are done they go back into the sand and their little columns just fall apart. Congrats!
I would not call spaghetti worms totally harmless. they will irritate zooanthids bad enough that they will die. I had a pretty bad problem with them in my frag tanks. I added a peppermint shrimp and took care of them. but other than that they are good little snacks for your fish that forage in the rocks (copperband,6 linewrasse,mandarin,etc)
They actually do look like little pieces of spahetti. I've only seen one bristleworm so far, there may be more. my coral banded shrimp is amazing to watch at night. he sits right in the current with arms outstretched like he's soaking up sun rays. really fun to watch.
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thin strands from live rock at night 
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