Feather Dusters and Invertebrates

[mmenz22779]

I had another thread http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=16800656 that talked about my emerald eating my feather duster.

Now upon the resposes from that thead I did more googling and found that Shimp and crabs are known to eat them.

It appears that Emeralds are the worst offenders due to their big claws, they just whack it right off.

Hermits will pick at it making holes in the tubes (but this is not as common as the emralds) They say that hermits are not eating them but cleaning them. Sometimes in the cleaning process they might damage them.

Shrimp will just eat them.

I lost all 4 of mine, due to the emerald crab as I watched him take out 2 of them. I dont think the hermits harmed them as I never saw them.

I also wonder if I could just put the feather dusters some place where the crabs cant get to them such as a ledge?

I really like the featherdusters but dont want to lose the CuC due to thier jobs in the tank.

1) Has anyone been to successfully able to keep featherdusters and Cuc?

2) What other inverts serve the same purpose as the crabs? Maybe I can replace my crabs with something else that eats the crap in the tank.

 

[romsoccer12]

best thing you can do is target feed your emeralds all the time, algae wafers, spirulna, some meaty foods, and move your feather dusters to spots where you dont see the emeralds a lott
otherwise its all in the luck of the draw on the CUC eating it

 

[mmenz22779]

thanks Rom, I figured that was about the only options.

If I do get rid of the crabs in my CUC then what can use to replace them?

 

[AJSTITAN14]

I don't think you need anything else. You still have an algae blenny, 5 hermits, 7 Turbos and 5 Ceriths even if you get rid of your bigger crabs.

I have the same tank you do and all we have are 2 Nassarius and 7 Hermits. Aside from 2-3 spots that the Hermits don't seem to get into the tank is clean. I also have a plastic net full of Caulerpa that is amazing for denitrifying the water. My Clown also likes to graze on it once in a while too.

 

[mmenz22779]

AJSTITAN14 - I was thinking that too, that maybe I have plenty of CUC to keep the tank happy. Accually i am thinking of getting 1 cleaner shrimp. One of my emralds got stuck to my Urchin and well lets just say it did not turn out nice for him. So i am down to 1 emerald now.

 

[mmenz22779]

imagine getting stuck on a spikey ball and rolling over and over and over......

 

[romsoccer12]

dont get peppermint shrimp, mine ate my coco worm
here are some cool inverts that i dont think will cause harm to your dusters
blood shrimp scarlet shrimp
porcelain crab, maybe 1 or 2 new emeralds that u feed much more
starfish
go to liveaquaria and just see all the other cool stuff you can get in the inver section

 

[mmenz22779]

so far so good with only 1 small emerald in there now and 2 new feather dusters all has been peaceful.

 

[AJSTITAN14]

Glad to hear that. I could tell you were really frustrated there for a while.

 

[mmenz22779]

Ya , I cant blame the crabs too much its what they do. My mistake thinking that it would all work out and took the risk. I am glad i was able to give the crabs back to my LFS. I am sure they are happy now as well.

We have to take a step back and remember that we are taking these guys and trying to put them in our enviroment. It is us not them that need to adapt if we truly want to enjoy this hobby.

 

[240z]

i have a yellow feather duster with and emeral crab, and sally long foot and a pepermint shirmp in a 12g nano just fine.

 

[mmenz22779]

From what I read and understand it is a game of chance as well. I have 1 emerald left and now my feather dusters are fine.

I had 4 green emerals. 3 big ones and 1 small one, I saw one of the big ones tear them apart. The others left them alone. The only issue was i did not know which one was the offender, so I had to get rid of all three big ones, and I kept the small one.

So far so good.

 

[jchase1970]

i have about 50 red leg hermits and several feather dusters and have not had any problems. glad to see this post cause i was thinking about getting a emerald crab but i think i will opt out of that now just so i don't have to worry.

Did the feather duster die or did it grow back?

 

[mmenz22779]

nope it died, the emerald completly wacked it off it was a soft tube worm. I now have no emeralds left, lots of hermits, and 2 new feather dusters what look happy. Plus my emeralds were punking around the hermits and snails.

I really enjoyed having the emeralds but for my tank they were not the right choice. Maybe my tank was to small? who know but that is what happens in this hobby.

Everyone's results will vairy thought.

For me I enjoy the dusters more than the crabs so they were the ones who went. as the hermits and snails are doing a great for my CUC.

 

[tommydee]

I had same problem w/ one of my 2 featherdusters, but not sure of the culprit...I have a few smaller mantis floating around, but not sure they would do this....so I took out the empty tube.

Then, I saw a little "baby" feather duster behind the tube...was the original worm just hiding, or it's offspring? Now what do I do, does this guy have a tube? Sorry, new to this.

 

[mmenz22779]

hmm never had a baby feather duster, that would be cool, You may have to ask your local fish store, I dont recall many members here haveing bagy ones.

Since i got rid of my emeralds my feather dusters are happy and alive still. The hermits dont bother them.

 

[Rockys_Pride]

I read somewhere that feather dusters will reproduce when stressed. You lose the original, but get lots of baby ones. This happened when my tank was new, now I have lots of babies. Don't know where the red ones came from as I only had white ones?

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