featherduster question(again)

[rhino509]

i have asked in here before,i just want to re assure the featherdusters wont do any harm.

they dont/havent seemed to bother it as of yet,i dont know if they just know to stay away,or if they just havent got there yet,or if and when they do,what will happen?

i thought this was a cool picture of the urchin,right as the lights were coming on(on its way to darker ares) it had all its tenticles pretty much fully extended.(not the best up close picture but still a good one....hehe) it has also recently aquired featherdusters as part of its exterior.


this just a pic of the group of dusters on the opposite side of the tank from the others.

[papagimp]

If you're asking if the feather dusters are going to do any harm than no, about as harmless as they come. Once they exhuast their food supply their numbers will start to dwindle though, so If you wanna keep em around, start dosing phytoplankton.

[rhino509]

well thats nice to hear,i personally like the look of the dusters when they get to colonizing,gives the illusion of them being a soft coral of some sort.i do currently feed the tank reef nutrition phyto pheast every few days or so.

[papagimp]

wait until a year down the road, after you have purchased misc frags and rocks and other crap from many sources, you'll likely get a nice variety of dwarf feather dusters in the tank. I don't have any of those pinkish looking ones myself, but I have sorts of white, grey, green, and a few brownish/reddish ones. I do enjoy having a large colony of them, especially when their all swirling their feathers simultaniously, it looks so cool.

[rhino509]

i also have many of the dwarf feather dusters scattered through the tank,i dont bother trying to take pictures since the camera i have wouldnt allow.but it can take full tank shots....haha

[doadster]

If you have any large hermit crabs ....beware. Mine ate my beautiful duster last night. Pulled it right out of its tube.

[capn_hylinur]

Originally posted by doadster
If you have any large hermit crabs ....beware. Mine ate my beautiful duster last night. Pulled it right out of its tube.

I had two beutiful Hawaian feather dusters--they disappeared when I introduced a copper banded butterfly fish--never thought it might be the hermits.

[capn_hylinur]

Originally posted by papagimp
If you're asking if the feather dusters are going to do any harm than no, about as harmless as they come. Once they exhuast their food supply their numbers will start to dwindle though, so If you wanna keep em around, start dosing phytoplankton.

feather dusters along with clams are excellent water filterers--they should be part of every clean up crew.

[papagimp]

clams and dusters do filter the water, but it's really not enough to make any kind of impact on water quality. The number of each you would need would kinda take up the entire tank and not be as pretty, IMO. But it certainly doesn't hurt to have em at all.

[rhino509]

hermit crabs eat feather dusters? i dont think i knew that.i do have a few crabs in the tank,but not too many anymore.i have actually caught my foxface eating a crab(about 2 weeks ago).i have around 5-7 good sized turbos in the tank(about 3/4" to an 1" in size along with a few smaller ones for the clean up crew.

also,i know this is off subject,but can the salifert test kit batches be mixed with newer,fuller bottles of the same material? or should they be?(i havent done this yet,thats why im asking,im also asking because i see that every test kit has had a different batch number on it)