featherduster dead? molting?

[alita]

this may be an incredibly stupid question.. but .... i bought a giant hawaiian featherduster about 2 or 3 weeks ago.. it has been happy .. or so i thought, even started building a new tube into the live rock i placed it on.... then suddenly it dropped its feathery part... i can see the worm inside the tube still .. its been about a week and a half since it dropped the feathery part.... but it is still moving in the tube.... do they do this randomly.. or is it just going to die slowly? do i need to remove the worm before it dies?

 

[sompa]

everything is fine with it, do not remove it. they do this usually when they are growing or not happy but they will regrow a new crown. you should see a small crown popping out of tub shortly

 

[Tran1]

Featherduster will drop its crown when it is starving. It does that to preserve energy. The crown will grow back, but the worm is reduced in size. If food is not present, it may drop the crown one more time and die. Featherdusters need to be fed with phytoplanktons.

 

[alita]

i dose the tank twice a week with kent marine phytoplex... do i need to do it more often than that?

 

[sompa]

I don't feed mine at all......it will get plenty of food through the water flow...you can blow off you rock or stir the top layer of your sandbed and that will do the job also...

 

[Tran1]

alita, Hope this Article will be helpful to you. Good luck!

 

[Anonymous]

i dose the tank twice a week with kent marine phytoplex... do i need to do it more often than that?

FWIW, I've had my FD for well over a year and I never fed him. He never lost it's crown either.

~wings~

 

[romunov]

Some make it... most don't.

 

[Jolieve]

To that end, this is just my experience, featherdusters seem to do better in the sand in my tank. I've placed a couple in the rocks only to have them die. But the two I have placed in the sand are thriving and have been for about six months. In another year, I'll call it a success story, but they do seem to be doing better than my past attempts at keeping these creatures.

Hope it helps
J.

 

[ricky1414]

i dose the tank twice a week with kent marine phytoplex... do i need to do it more often than that?

I've used it when I first began I believe, but I soon stopped, because I noticed it led to algae blooms.

 

[WRASSER]

quality of water has a lot to do with feather dusters dropping their crown, fish nippig at them will do it to. FD are filtr feeders keep an eye on your water. :wink:

 

[sompa]

so how is it doing???? new crown? or bad news?

 

[romunov]

The magic is dosing enough phytoplankton and maintaining "healthy" water. That's why you need a large fuge with "lots'algae".

 

[ca1ore]

I have found that my FDs do better in the sand and love cyclopeeze!

Simon