Bristlewiorms eating my coral?

Question
Hey, I have a 35 gallon saltwater tank, and have only had it for two months or so. It has around 27 lbs of live rock and only 1 clownfish (if that stuff matters). anyway i bought a coral (some kind of grass thing, my first purchased coral) and the guy i bought it from (who has been very helpful) said after i put it in my tank it will contract or something, then after a a day or so it will come back out and be visible. Well it has been almost a week and nothing, and I'm wondering if the problem is these centipede-like things that i suddenly just began noticing in my tank today (i believe they are bristle worms). today is the first time I've seen them, but there seems to be a lot of them, I've noticed 5 or 6, and a few are well over 3 inches long. i wanted to know if they are the cause of my coral not growing, or if i should do something to control these things.

Answer

Hitchhikers Hey Evan,
The short answer is, no, the worms are probably not reason. Depends on the species of bristleworm though. Do they have red or orange coloration or stripes? Unless you see the worms on or near the coral they are probably just common bristleworms and can breed quickly to large populations. The worms are an indication of a problem though. When you see large numbers of them out, in sight(they usually live in rock or the substrate), that generally means that there is a large amount of detritus in the tank. This also means that water quality is probably not optimal. Test your water quality. Make sure there are no elevated levels of ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate. Corals are very sensitive and hard to keep critters. Even the hardiest coral species can't tolerate nitrates in their environment. Test for phosphates as well. This another contributor to poor water quality. You will probably also want to get a reef supplement like coral-vite. Corals need calcium, strontium, iodide and many minerals that we have a hard time maintaining in our little glass oceans, so you'll need to add them occassionally. Depending on species, corals can be extremely difficult to keep and some darn near impossible. Just be patient and make sure you have PRISTINE water conditions. They can take a while to adjust to a new environment. Check your lighting too. Corals need between 3 and 6 watts per gallon, mostly of full spectrum lighting, but some will need additional blue spectrum too. Your system needs between 110 and 175 watts. If you can get me a picture of the coral we can get you a precise needs list.
Now back to the worms, they are generally harmless(Ive enclosed a photo of harmless hitchhikers courtesy of sfc.com), and clean up waste and detritus in the tank. However, if there are too many you can start to have problems. What you can do is trap them. Take an old nylon stocking and put a piece of raw krill, shrimp, fish, etc, inside it and place it in the tank over nite. The worms get stuck in the nylon, remove it in the morning. A more efficient trap is to use the same nylon, only get a small section of pvc pipe and 2 end caps for it. Drill random 1/8 to 1/4 inch holes randomly around the pipe, place the nylon and bait in the pipe, cap it up and sink it in the tank overnight. In the morning empty it out. You may have to repeat this nightly for a few weeks but it beats removing the live rock from the system and trying to get them out with tweezers.
Good luck. Let me know how it goes.