Feather duster lost its head!

[denccie]

Looked into the tank this morning and saw my hawaain feather duster's setae (gills) on the other side of the tank than it's tube! Is this normal? I have had the feather duster for about a month and it was doing well, open most of the time.

Thanks

 

[SuperNerd]

Some people think it is normal but more likely it's a reaction to starvation. If they don't get enough to eat they'll keep doing this until they finally die. They need lots of live phytoplankton.

 

[denccie]

cool,
I have some E.S.V. spray dried marine phytoplankton and Liquid Life bioplankton. I was feeding just once a week. I will double the dose. HTink that should do it?

 

[SuperNerd]

I believe live is better. Turn off your skimmer when you do that.

 

[Chad Vossen]

my smaller feather dusters will eat cyclopeeze, when yours regrows part of its crown, try feeding it tiny meaty foods. it might take a bit for the duster to get used to you putting food on it but it will accept it in time.

i think they will also drop their crowns when water quality goes bad. such as an amonnia spike

 

[greenbean36191]

Cyclopeeze is too big for these guys to eat. They capture it, but it gets turned into pseudofeces. Their crowns are furrowed to act as particle sorters and only the particles that are the right size actually go to the mouth. For most species the right size is in the range of phytoplankton and clumps of bacteria. Zooplankton and meaty foods are much larger.