crabs eating feather duster

[njp14333]

i have what i believe are dwarf red tip hermit crabs. they seem to be picking away at my feather duster's tube. is this normal or are they going to eventually kill it?

 

[AllenFord_SC]

Since that is it's protective barrier I am making the assumption and I should stress assumption that it will eventually die from stress. Maybe others would know better.

 

[Pandora]

This happened to my feather duster a few days ago (search function down but I made a post about it, was called "Caught red handed") The guilty crab has since been banished to the sump, and the duster has made a full recovery, was not in the least bit stressed (it actually came out a few minutes afterwards). They make their tubes out of mucus, so it's very easy for them to rebuild it (it's totally made the part that was torn, and the worm itself was unharmed, fully retracted at the time--the tube is dead material and has no nerve endings).