Feather Duster Distress!

Discussion in 'Inverts' started by Giovanni, Jul 18, 2011.

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  1. Giovanni

    Giovanni Astrea Snail

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    I have a small 5g tank for my nightstand in which i have an emerald crab, a peppermint shrimp, a hermit, and a starfish... Well, I have about 8lbs of LR in there and thought I would buy a feather duster to liven it up a little and saw that it had left its tube the same night i bought it and was eaten the morning after. Then I had bought aanother small peice of LR which had 2 small dusters attached to it and settled it in at its own side of the tank and have not seen them since purchasing the rock at my local saltwater store... What gives?! Why do the dusters keep dying?

    ADDITIONAL: Also I have had my water tested and everything seems fine.
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2011
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  3. insanespain

    insanespain Ocellaris Clown

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    How long has the tank been setup?
     
  4. Giovanni

    Giovanni Astrea Snail

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    roughly about a month and a half or so
     
  5. starfish2217

    starfish2217 Horrid Stonefish

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    What kind of starfish?
     
  6. Giovanni

    Giovanni Astrea Snail

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  7. Mr. Bill

    Mr. Bill Native Floridian

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    I had an emerald crab that forced a hawaiian featherduster out of its tube as soon as I placed him in my tank and a peppermint shrimp that eradicated all my rock-based tube worms and attacked my flower anemone, as well as several other disasters involving the malice of other crustaceans. Someone else posted on here a couple of weeks ago about their starfish killing and eating their clam. Needless to say, I'm not a strong supporter of the notion that motive inverts are reef-safe...
     
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  9. Giovanni

    Giovanni Astrea Snail

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    I agree on the clam thing... I had placed a fire scallop and a normal clam i had found at the beach in there (now a 20g) and within a matter of about 10 min my clam was gang raped by my hermits and my starfish demolished my fire scallop
     
  10. Doratus

    Doratus Teardrop Maxima Clam

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    Star fish in general are not really "reef safe" especially bigger species like the one you have. I don't know if that is even relevant to your question or if it helps you in any way but it seems to be a common thing for people to want to get. Crabs, Starfish, and pretty much all mobile inverts are constantly scavenging for food. In a tank as small as yours, with basically nothing for them to feed on, it's only a matter of time before they would eat things that you don't want them to eat. Just my opinion.
     
  11. Caspian

    Caspian Coral Banded Shrimp

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    Woodland, CA
    I recently had some peppermint shrimp eat two snails and then go after a new frogspawn so I would say yes the inverts are to blame for the dusters dying off.
     
  12. gabbagabbawill

    gabbagabbawill Pajama Cardinal

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    feather duster worms can lose their "duster" when stressed but the worm itself can still be alive... it may be that it got stressed when you added it to the tank....