bristle worms

Question
I just did a water change on my 75 gallon tank and we forgot to mix the salt in with the water so i have no fish so we added the salt in the tank so i hope everything will be ok. anyway my question is when i add the salt some clumps are on the sand bed and then i noticed that at least 15 bristle worms were out on the sand. do they eat salt? why would they come out?

Answer
Jennifer,

mixing salt directly into the tank can be catastrophic for any living thing in the tank. it is lucky you did not have fish in there at the time but i would think a fair amount of beneficial hitchhikers on your live rock may have perished.

as im sure you know, the reefs of the world are some of the most balanced ecosystems in the world. therefore it is nearly impossible to perfectly replicate this in such a tiny environment such as a fish tank. there is little to no room for error in this hobby, consider yourself fortunate when you forgot to mix salt in the water tat you had no expensive fish in the tank. because when you get your tank established and thriving,it will surely be full of expensive corals and fish. and any mistake such as forgetting to mix salt into the water, no matter how small a mistake that may seem. can very well be catastrophic to the entire system. most likely causing a crash of the tank.

as for the bristle worms, i would not worry. they were simply looking for more nutrients from the clumps of salt.