bad news, good news and questions

[ErinGoBragh]

Well, Last night I made the hard decision. The Large Hermit is going back to the lfs. Last night I purchased a Feather Duster and a cleaner shrimp to make up for the crab being gone. I have a couple questions regarding both new purchases. First, The Cleaner shrimp is a big female full of eggs. What are the odds that the eggs are fertilized and I will get a bunch of "freebie" shrimp. Second, How does the feather duster worm reproduce? In a thread a few days ago someone had a TON of them in their tank, they were going crazy! I unfortunatly I am starting to have some water quality issues, and I am hoping these will help (not solve) whats going on. Let me know what you think.

[icebear]

the shrimp eggs most likely will not last long, other things in the tank or filtration will get them- even if they are fertile... a bit of free food.

i think the small featherdusters are different than the larger types- i have had the small ones for somewhere around 3-4 years now and they have not gotten bigger than a quarter, at least not yet. but i never researched whether they grow slow or not. I guess the large ones can divide themselves, but i don't know enough about that to try to describe how or what causes them to do so.

[ErinGoBragh]

Originally Posted by icebear

the shrimp eggs most likely will not last long, other things in the tank or filtration will get them- even if they are fertile... a bit of free food.

i think the small featherdusters are different than the larger types- i have had the small ones for somewhere around 3-4 years now and they have not gotten bigger than a quarter, at least not yet. but i never researched whether they grow slow or not. I guess the large ones can divide themselves, but i don't know enough about that to try to describe how or what causes them to do so.

the feather duster is a larger one, the crown is a little bigger than a silver dollar. It also looks like 2 seperate crowns. I am not sure of the exact species. It just looked really good at the lfs. I know thats a bad thing, but I believe all feather dusters are filter feeders, and non photosynthetic. Btw, what ammount of current to they like?

[ErinGoBragh]

anyone? how much current are feather dusters happy with? I have basically the equivillant of a windstorm on one end of the tank and moderate current on the other side. I have him in the center now, but I want to make sure he is content.

[Jimbo]

Feather dusters like low flow areas, hi flow and they will lose there crowns. I've seen them multiply in a 180 g tank, but have never heard of it in smaller systems.

[ErinGoBragh]

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Feather dusters like low flow areas, hi flow and they will lose there crowns. I've seen them multiply in a 180 g tank, but have never heard of it in smaller systems.

Thanks Jimbo, I have been searching old threads, but haven't come up with anything yet. My tank is a 75g so probably not going to get more out of it. Oh well. The tank will get where I want it eventually.

[ErinGoBragh]

I have read up on the feather dusters and Everything I read said that they were realtively easy to keep, but after reading some of the archived posts that may not be the case. there are even some posts that basically say that featherdusters are as hard to keep as anemone's. Is this correct? I would hate to have another needless death in my tank.

[yardboy]

Erin, there are quite a few species of featherdusters. The small white or slightly colored ones seem to spring from the primal ooze. If conditions are right they are everywhere. I think they are a cool smaller-scale element to a tank. On the larger ones, I have only two experiences. One of my first purchases was a Hawaiian featherduster which was quite large and in the several years that I had it looked very nice but never grew. About two months ago I looked in the tank and his crown had disintegrated and he was dead. A week or so later I bought another but put him in my prop tank to observe before putting him in the main tank. The next day I found him torn to shreds and a red crab, who I didn't even know was in the tank, eating him. A 1/4" dowel rod through his shell made me feel a little better. I'll be getting another duster soon though as I really like them, despite their low "personality quotient"

[ErinGoBragh]

Originally Posted by yardboy

I'll be getting another duster soon though as I really like them, despite their low "personality quotient"

I don't think they have a low personality quotient, I think it is more of a supporting personality for the other stars of the tank. They look pretty cool just waving around in there.

[VWD]

I have never found them to be hard to keep , ( Hawaiian featherduster )Even back in the days of undergravel Filter , I had good luck with them , I like to have them in the tank and the small white one that get everywhere in the tank back glass , overflow , I think they help Your tank , Vince