Feather duster head off, or the whole worm?

[bookpile]

I'm breaking down my bigger tank and moving it to a RSM. My feather duster was attached to a large piece of rock and I had to take it out of the water for a minute to chisel off the piece it was attached to.

This morning I woke up to find the feathers on the sand bed. They were tightly bound together at the end by something dark brown. When they pop their head, do the feathers go all over the place or are they held together like that? I was planning to fish it out of the tank but when I came back it had moved under another piece of live rock and opened up it's head. So maybe that was the whole worm that vacated it's tube and is looking for another home.

Either that or it's not moving on it's own and just flowing in the current. Any ideas? Sorry I didn't get any picts.

 

[JetCat USA]

the crown stays in tact when it's cast, usually the worm will stay in the tube when it does and slowly starve. when the whole worm comes out with the crown it's hard to mistake it, the worm is bright pink and several inches of it are behind the crown and very easily seen, in some of those cases I've seen them build new tubes and survive.

 

[bookpile]

Ok thanks, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't the whole worm before I pulled it out.

 

[shrinky]

also, don't get overly discouraged - I had a feather duster do the same thing - shed ALL it's feathers and crown (due to some rough clown treatment) - I figured it was a goner, but slowly and surely it's feathers grew back, and shockingly enough, my clown is MUCH more gentle with it now.

 

[bookpile]

Looks like my guy is a fighter, he had a new crown on yesterday. It's a lot smaller, but I'm sure it will come back to it's brilliance.

 

[JetCat USA]

if the worm is healthy enough to survive while expending the energy to rejuvenate the crown they usually don't have a problem pulling through just fine, good luck.