Arggh....my Feather Duster Shed Its Crown

[fish_keeper2]

like it says my feather duster shed its crown. what could be wrong? i dont know the water stats but my water is crystal clear, no funny smells, all other inhabitants are doing well. ill test teh water tonite when i get home from school. anyone have any idea why this could have happened....for a list of stock in my tank look at my profile.

 

[steelhealr]

Stress. The feather duster is, most likely, slowing dying from starvation. I've posted this several times, but, feather duster's are not as easy to keep as is posted. YES...there are anecdotal survivals, mostly in larger tanks. These guys are filter feeders and need a pretty consisent and particular plankton to survive.

The typical scenario that you will now probably see:
1) Fan worm drops it's crown and disappears
2) Reappers and starts growing a new crown
3) Disappears after dropping it's crown again
4) Disappears permanently.

SH

 

[fish_keeper2]

what should i do? feed more or just give it to a lfs? if i feed it should i wait till the crown grows back? how long will it take for the crown to grow back?

 

[steelhealr]

Were you feeding it BENEATH the crown or into the CENTER of the crown?

Read this...althought for coco worms, I think it covers Hawaiian's as well.

http/www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/sept2002/toonen.htm

Research is always important prior to putting anything into one's tank. SH

 

[Chac]

Any of your other livestock picking at it before it shed

 

[FishOwner]

How long have you had your duster? I've had it happen where I've put a duster in my tank only to have it lose it's crown in a couple of days. Leave it alone and it will regrow it. It will be smaller at first but as time goes on, the crown will get bigger.
Now if the featherduster worm leaves it's tube you better forget about it living IME, but losing the crown is a fairly common occurance.

BTW, be careful of overfeeding as you have a small tank. A little DT's (phyto) goes a long way in a small tank!!

HTH

 

[fish_keeper2]

SH - neither 3 days a week i turned off my skimmer and added a cap full of kents phytoplankton to the tank and let the filter and powerhead swirl it around the tank

Chac - i susppect my neon pseudochromis of picking on it. soon after i added the neon pseudochromis all of the baby feather dusters i add disappeared along with an apista and a few times i have seen a "feather" floating around the tank from the feather dusters but that has happened only a few times since i had the neon pseudochromis which is about 2 months now. i havent been feeding my fish as often lately so maybe the pseudochromis got hungry?

FishOwner - i have had the feather duster for a while. it was one of the first inhabbitants in my tank(after the cleaning crew but before any fish) but this is the first time ive had any problems with it.

 

[steelhealr]

Kents phytoplankton is dead (phytoplex?) It's probably useless. . Try spot feeding it UNDER the crown next time. SH

 

[Fatty]

I had my duster scared out of his tube, but I just left it alone and protected it with rocks and within a few weeks it had grown a brand new tube, and is doing really well with two crowns, I think mine mainly feeds off the frozen food juice that floats around the tank with every feed.

Keep trying!