Need to pick your mind

[jessencharleyne]

Would nitrate's at an unstable level make coraline algae not produce? Are undergravel filter systems good? What's macro algae? Why won't my camera take good pictures of my tank? Why is a bristol worm living in the same hole as my feather duster? Don't get me wrong my wife wrote the second ?.

[squibley2]

Well lets see:

Any instability is bad for a tank but high levels of nitrate would affect Coraline more then unstable levels. You need to find out where your nitrates are coming from!

Under-gravel systems should not be used in SW at all, and I would say not on FW either. I would avoid them like the plague!!!

Macro Algae is just a type of algae that is large in nature. IE the form of the algae (read as big leaves etc)

Camera either sucks or you are not white balancing it or focusing properly ( this is a really tricky thing that takes a lot of practice! )

Bristol worms live everywhere! Get a six line or follow one of the other methods to rid your tank of them.

Say hello to your wife!

[Bifferwine]

I mostly agree with Squibley

Definitely NO undergravel filter! I was misguided by a pet store owner into using one when I started my SW tank, it was ugly, messy, took up a lot of space, created areas of dead water, blech. And it was a huge mess to finally remove from my tank, once I had tons of animals in it, of course. I had to take everything out of the tank and remove it from under the substrate, which made the water cloudy for a week!

Bristle worms are (mostly) good for your tank. There are a couple species that reportedly eat polyps, etc. But the vast majority of species don't hurt anything and just clean the leftover food, detritus and junk of the bottom of your tank. They are excellent cleaners and come out and night and will clean your substrate and rocks. They can get really huge, I remove them from my tank (if I can catch them) once they get to be 6 inches or longer (because then they are just gross looking) but I don't worry about the little ones. I have a six line wrasse that eats them, but he can't keep up and I still have a million in my tank. I would not remove your bristle worm(s).