Feather duster

[cousinreinz2]

I have a feather duster that I think has no feathers.I have had it for 2 weeks,first week it was active this past week I havent seen it.Today I saw it moving in and out with just its to little white fingers/claws?Does anyone know what might be wrong.Water is good.I have one more and it is doing fine.:notsure:

 

[thomas712]

Have you been feeding it any phytoplankton?
Have you seen the feathers around the tank anywhere?
What type of worm/feather duster are we talking about. In a large tube? or just coming out of a rock? what?
THomas

 

[cousinreinz2]

I feed them phytoplan.I did not see any feathers around.It is a Large tube feather I got from LFS.Do you know if shrimp eat them I have about 7 peppermint shrimp.The other feather duster is doing good looking healthy.

 

[daisy]

I do believe peppermints will attack and eat the large feather dusters. I lost three of them that way.
I won't buy another (or christmas tree worms or coco worms, etc) until I catch and give away my peppermints.
Wish me luck.

 

[cousinreinz2]

Good luck daisy.I need to keep my pep shrimp I had an outbreak of aptaisia 2 years ago.It took me a year and a half to get my tank back to good health.I still have a couple in tank the shrimp keep them in line till I am ready to dose them again.Sorry about your dusters.I guess I cant have any then.:nope:

 

[tree]

I have 2 jumbo feather dusters with 5 peppermint shrimp. If I put the feather dusters in the rockwork, it is not long before the peppermints start planning their attack. I swear you can see them planning :scared: The solution I have come up with so far is to use a piece of PVC pipe, drill lots of holes in it for water flow (but I'm not sure that is needed). I then mounted the pipe to the wall using the holder for an old heater. 2 weeks & so far they are still doing well. Future plan is to make a couple agrocrete tubes for them. It seems the peppermints were going for the soft spots on the worm casing and not the actual feathers.

 

[cousinreinz2]

How does the pvc look in the tank.Any Idea why they only went for 1 and not the other.It has been almost 3 weeks.the one that sits on the sand is looking good.The other is sticking up 3inches out of the sand.thank for the idea.Do you have a pic of how it looks

 

[bheron]

wow. iv'e never heard of this problem. i have two peppermints and was planning on getting some feather dusters eventually.
anyone else chime in here??

 

[thomas712]

Three large feather dusters, two peppermint shrimp, on blood shrimp, 4 emerald crabs.....No problems.
Thomas

 

[cousinreinz2]

Only one of them it seems strange I have 2.Does any one know if they grow their feathers back.

 

[thomas712]

Yes they can.

 

[saltymist]

I have a large FeatherDuster, and 2 peppermint shrimp in my nanocube and so far the peppermints are showing no interest in the featherduster. Maybe because they are well fed (but not overfed).
Keeping my fingers crossed, since I dont want to get rid of either, the shrimp or the duster, at nighttime the shrimp do a ballet in the tank whick looks really really cool.

 

[saltfin]

My 2 Yellow tangs used to pick at my Feather dusters tubes I thought for algae. But they got a taste for the tubes and would eat them also. One morning I found one worm with feathers still attached but both ripped out of the tube. Just was squirming around laying in the sand. I thought about trying to stick back into the tube but didn't. Disappeared within a couple days - probably in someones stomach.:scared:

 

[bheron]

BTW - how do you feed them phytoplankton? not how, but where do you get it? i've only heard of culturing this stuff yourself. surely this cant be the only way to feed a featherduster?

 

[saltymist]

You can buy stuff like Kent Marine's PhytoPlex, which is a concentrated aquacultured Marine Phytoplankton. My LFS charges up the wazoo for this at $14.99 for a 8fl oz bottle, but it should last me easily a year or more for just one featherduster in a small nano tank.

 

[bheron]

cool!