What do feather duster worms do?

What do feather duster worms do?

Giant feather duster worms feed on small food particles and plankton floating in the water and can only thrive in areas with moving currents that bring in new plankton, but they do not simply wait passively for them. Instead, they create a current in the water to direct the particles into its mouth.

What do fan worms decompose?

These “feathers” are used to actively filter out tiny organic particulate matter from the water column, often missed by our filtration systems. If these particles are not biologically processed or removed, they slowly decay and compromise water quality.

Where do feather duster worms go?

Tank Placement All feather dusters are suspension feeders and should be placed near (or at) the bottom of the aquarium, where their food—suspended particulate matter—is most abundant. Substrate placement is also optimal because they construct their tubes using sand, detritus, and other bits of sediment.

What are the feather duster worm’s appendages used for?

The tentacles are at the anterior end of a worm that grows to 25 cm in length, and they serve as feeding appendages, filtering out plankton that drift by. Plankton-feeders such as this often live where there are strong currents and wave action, moving food past the animal at a high rate.

Are feather duster worms hard to keep?

While they do need some extra attention Feather Duster worms aren’t too challenging to keep. So long as you can meet their water quality, feeding, and tank mate requirements you will likely enjoy one (or many) for years to come!

Are feather duster worms bad?

Feather duster worm compatibility A feather duster worm won’t cause any compatibility issues in your tank—they are gentle creatures that will leave other animals alone (unless they are plankton, of course, because then they are food). So you wouldn’t want to add them to a tank that has any animals likely to eat them.

Who eats fan worms?

If you want a natural predator, some wrasses will eat them, several types of butterfly fish will, and certain shrimp, such as the coral banded shrimp (which I actually recommend against getting) will eat them too.

Are feather duster worms good?

Feather duster worms are peaceful and won’t bother anything other than the food they eat. They don’t really have any other requirements that—reef tank water parameters, a light-to-moderate current, and the food they can eat. They can even be kept in small tanks.

Is my feather duster worm dead?

Look to see if the feather duster head is inside the tube a majority of the time; if so, the worm cannot feed and will die. A healthy feather duster will display its tentacles, or crown, a majority of the time. If your feather duster does this, it is fine.

Where do fan worms live?

Fan worms (Sabellidae), also known as feather-duster worms, are tube-dwelling marine annelids inhabiting most marine environments, from the littoral to the deep ocean sediments and with a few species that have also colonized freshwater habitats.

How do fan worms feed?

Feeding: Suspension feeders – feed on food particles suspended in the water. The radioles have a conveyor belt of cilia to carry entrapped particles suspended in the water. The ciliated groove of the conveyor belt mechanically sorts particles into 3 size classes.

Can feather duster worms move?

They can move up and down in the tube but that is about it. Also as they make their tube larger – but that’s it.

What should I Feed my feather duster worm?

The most popular foods for feather duster worms in a home aquarium are plankton and baby brine shrimp. These attractive annelids are frequently available at my local fish store.

How are feather dusters and fanworms related?

They are actually annelids, which means they are related to earthworms. However, unlike the free-living members of that phylum, these worms are sedentary — in other words, they are sessile and fixed to a spot. As with the earthworms, they have a segmented body, although it is protected within a tube.

Can a feather duster live in an aquarium?

The modern reef aquarium, with its aggressive skimming and low nutrient levels, are often not ideal for these worms, which benefit from regular supplementary feedings. Mature systems are preferred for captive worms, as these provide stable water conditions, as well as housing potential feed in the form of natural plankton populations.

Are there any crabs that eat feather dusters?

As for invertebrates, many crabs seem to find the gills and the tubes of these worms irresistible. There are several genera of feather duster in the trade, including Sabellastarte, Bispira and Branchiomma, and to some extent they have similar requirements in terms of flow and feed.