Marine Worms: Ornamental, Predatory, Nuisance or Beneficial?

Marine worms can be found basically in every part of the benthic areas of our tanks and the natural reefs of the world. They are a very crucial part to the marine ecosystem much like worms are to our gardens. Worms such as polychaete worms offer many advantages to life in general in the oceans and our tanks through their ability to aerate substrate and decrease detritus accumulation, filter feed, consume and recycle both inorganic and organic matter, act as scavengers and detritivores and help with the decomposition role and also can be predators or food stuff for other inhabitants. Yes, worms can be beneficial or downright evil so their needs to be some awareness of the different types. The predatory and nuisance ones are just as easy to come by as the beneficial ones and they all pretty much arrive in our tanks through hitchhiking in live rock and sand.

These annelids contain segmented(metameric) bodies for the most part, bilaterally symmetrical. They have a nervous, digestion and circulatory system that is fully functional. They can be either hermaphroditic or dioecious and display a hydrostatic skeleton that can be soft or hard depending on the amount of coelomic fluid within it . Most of the worms also have fleshy legs(parapodia) attached to each segment with bristles.