another duster question

liquafaction

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Jul 1, 2003
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I have noticed that all of the little tube worms in my tank, are spitting off there "fans". I see them floating around in the tank, and the fish eat them. After seing this for a few days, my big feather duster spit off its fan. You can still see the worm moving in the tube. Today when I cam home from work, about 3" of the worm was hanging out of the tube. I was going to get it out of the tank after my daughter and I got done playing. When my daughter went to bed, I came back to the tank, and the worm was back in the tube. What is the deal with this thing? Will this thing grow its fan back?
 
Dusters don't normally shed their feeding appendages unless they're stressed. Have there been any big changes lately? How long have they been in the tank?

If the worm is healthy and has enough energy stored up, it can grow the fan back. If it comes back a lot smaller, it probably won't make it.
 
It is a few weeks old to me. I noticed the others at the pet store that was with this one are in the same condition. It is getting very disapointing having everything die on me. I do not know what easier, hardier inverts I can get and have them not die. I am about ready to see if my LFS will give me some aptasia he has in one of his tanks
 
I noticed the others at the pet store that was with this one are in the same condition.
The same condition as yours, or the same condition as when you got it? If they all look bad, it probably isn't your tank.

In my opinion, dusters are probably best in mature tanks, where they can benefit from diverse potential food sources. That still may not be enough.

What's in the tank right now?
 
I was under the impression that dusters where easy to keep. I dove in so hard so fast with the anemones, I figured I would slack off, and get easy inverts.

The others in the tank were missing there fans when I went back and visited. I try to play the wait a while rule before buying from my fish store. Now that I visit the fish store more and more, I noticed that he sells out by the end of the week, and re-stocks every Thursday. I usually go in on mondays in buy.
 
To be honest, I don't know. Because they are specialized for very small food particles, it's hard to know whether they get enough to eat in a tank. The small hitchiking dusters in my tank have done well for years, so I guess they're getting enough, but I often wonder whether the big ones just slowly starve to death in most tanks. That's just an opinion, maybe they really are easy to keep.

I can't remember what your lighting is like, but there are some good corals that are pretty hard to kill. Green star polyps (I have to use kalkwasser paste to keep it from overrunning the tank), mushroom anemones, various leathers are all pretty hard to kill.

Keep an eye on the worm, though. It may recover.
 
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I have 440 watts of pc lighting, and 2 48" flouresenct actinic tubes. I was wanting to get some more (different varities) leathers because I have had so much luck with my first ones. I have a bunch of mushrooms now. I also have some buble coral that does well.

I am with you on the hitching dusters. All the small ones in my tank do very well. a lot of them have doubled in size in the past few months. I have read, and kinda came to my own conclusion that the big ones would do well also. By the way, this one did die. I checked the tube last night, and it was empty. I figured my scavangers disposed of the carcus.
 
Uh, guys. I understand the hitchhikers but purchasing an animal and placing it in your aquarium when you do not know how to care for it smacks of cruelty.

The care and keeping of feather duster worms is well known and quite easy. These worms are NOT photosynthetic and do not need light, but they do have eyes and will respond to light and movement.

To quote maine biologist Dr. Ron Shimek: "Feather dusters need a lot of food, and if the food is not present, will starve for a while and then shed the tentacle crown." Dusters also shed their crown when they are stressed out from poor water conditions, such as high nitrates (more than 10ppm), or if they are placed in too little or too high flow. I have mine in just enough flow to wave their feathers gently.

Feather dusters are filter feeders, and eat the phytoplankton in suspension in the water column. Unless you a) dose phytoplankton or b) you have a large system with plenty of LR and light or no skimming (skimming removes phytoplankton), your dusters will almost certainly starve to death. I dose DT's Live Phyto in my tanks.

As with just about any invertibrate, they appreciate full-strength seawater (~1.025 specific gravity) and natural reef temperatures (78-82).

You'll find tons of info just by searching Google. Here is the article I quoted: http://www.dtplankton.com/Feather_dusters.htm.

Sorry if I come across as a jerk but I hate to see any animal die from ignorance of their needs.
 
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