Interesting critters

Question
Hello!

My tank is newly established (4 weeks roughly).  I have these critters crawling all over my rocks, not sure what they are.  Somebody said they may be bristleworms??  If so, how do I know if I have too many of them?  My tank is not ready for any other critters yet.  I have 4 chromis and that's all.

Another thing, I was gazing into my aquarium a couple days ago and noticed something coming out of the sand.  It kind of freaked me out.  What I saw was some kind of creature, I am guessing.  I don't quite know how to explain it, but hopefully you'll get an understanding of what I'm talking about.  These "tendril" looking things (2 of them) came out of the sand from what looked like the same spot.  They appeared to be about 1 1/2 to 2 inches in length, but very thin and they were cream colored.  When they came out of the ground they spiraled and unspiraled at the end, waved around a second or two then went back under the ground slowly.  Not at the same pace, but both the tendril looking things went under ground, one right after the other.  Hopefully you can understand what I'm talking about!  LOL

Answer
Hello Cheryl,

sorry for the delay.  I been a bit busy dealing with a remodel due to a plumbing leak, (not related to my fish tank)...
As to the bristle worms.  If that is what they are.. they are ok... you can try to control the population, but basically you do that by feeding the tank less... the more you feed the more waste that may hit the bottom and the more fish poop and all that good stuff and the more bristle worms..

BW arent bad.  they are actually good.  as they eat the left over food and dead critter stuff.  circle of life thing...

as to the other things. I am guessing they might be 'spaghetti worms'  they typicall stick out of the rockwork or sand and just extend a 'feeder/sweeper' tentacle in hopes of snagging something in the water column. Again, not bad to have them, and a good sign... critters and hitchhikers do not do well in crudy tanks.  :)

Search the web for those critters above and see if they look like what you got going on.

Please let me know what you find out..

bill


good luck