Featherduster feeding questions

[Mikey Donuts]

Hello, I just put a couple of small featherdusters in my nine gal (they will be moved to my 150 in a few months). They are very colorful and have about a one inch crown. I've also got a group of small "cluster" dusters (1/4" crowns). I've placed all of them in low/med light and gentle/moderate flow areas in the rockwork. I know thay are filter feeders, and I've got some DT's phyto for them.

My question is how much and how often do they need to be target fed? Is phyto enough to sustain them or should I also feed "marine snow"?

Thanks in advance for your advice!
Mike

 

[billsreef]

Dusters tend to do very well on the bacterioplankton in the tank that results from feeding the fish and other critters. The DT's will help as well. IMO I wouldn't bother with the Marine Snow as it's mostly water. Better off ordering a small quantity of small sized Golden Pearls from brineshrimpdirect.com. It's a highly nutritious larval shrimp feed with sizes as small as rotifer's and on up. Great stuff for filter feeders, but you need to be cautious of overfeeding as a little bit goes a very long ways.

 

[Mikey Donuts]

Thanks a lot for the info Bill, it's just what I was looking for. How often should I supplement? Is once/week enough?
Thanks
Mike

 

[billsreef]

Once or twice a week is probably plenty for the dusters. If you use the DT's a bit more often you might find some other filter feeders such as sponges growing out of the rock.

 

[Mikey Donuts]

Thanks again Bill, I'll be sure to pick up some Golden pearls as well.

 

[coralnut99]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10252213#post10252213 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by billsreef
Dusters tend to do very well on the bacterioplankton in the tank that results from feeding the fish and other critters. The DT's will help as well. IMO I wouldn't bother with the Marine Snow as it's mostly water. Better off ordering a small quantity of small sized Golden Pearls from brineshrimpdirect.com. It's a highly nutritious larval shrimp feed with sizes as small as rotifer's and on up. Great stuff for filter feeders, but you need to be cautious of overfeeding as a little bit goes a very long ways.

Agreed across the board. I have a duster in the corner of a 125 that I haven't fed in almost 3 years. The little dusters all over the refugiums don't get direct-fed either, obviously. They do well in established systems that have a balanced bio-load.

 

[Mikey Donuts]

Hey nut, how big is the duster in the corner of your tank? I've read that the big (3" crown) Hawaiian dusters do need to be target fed. I'd like to get a couple for my 150. The dusters are one of my favorite inverts: they don't harm anything and they add color and movement to the tank.

 

[billsreef]

I've kept the big Hawaiian ones without target feeding, even had them breed and successfully settle out and grown the second generation to full size Good feeding of the tank is key, but it doesn't need to be targeted directly at the dusters.

 

[coralnut99]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10259893#post10259893 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Mikey Donuts
Hey nut, how big is the duster in the corner of your tank? I've read that the big (3" crown) Hawaiian dusters do need to be target fed. I'd like to get a couple for my 150. The dusters are one of my favorite inverts: they don't harm anything and they add color and movement to the tank.

Not huge. 3 maybe 4 inches across. It stuck itself to a piece of rock so the tube hasn't grown a bit in eons. The tank it's in is just turning 2 years old, but it was a combination of the ingredients of 3 smaller ones, so it's in the 3-4 year old range. I use a magnet to keep the glass clean so I have to figure that helps quite a bit as opposed to scraping with a razor.