First time we ever had a duster jump ship I was pretty reluctant to
disturb the tube. My wife was all for it as she is a feather duster
and coco worm fanatic and if it was dead or gone, she was chomping at
the bits to replace it. She oculd not resists so she palpitated that
tube a few times and then finally decided it was not in there. She
compared that tube to one that had a worm in it that routinely was out
in view. She learned how thew differences in the tubes felt and
decided that tube was vacated. She could not let well enough alone and
used a manicure scissors to sut the tube open and disect it.....It was
empty, and no inhabitant was found. Sometimes we have found FD worms
to jump shimp and start a new tube other times we find them laying
dead. so its really hard to say what is gonna happen. If its been in
the tank for some time (months and months) I wuld zero in on what
changed or what is in there that may be irritting it, if its
relatively new, it ocld be from almost anything, and most times stuff
that has nothing to do with the tank it is in when it jumped ship. FD
are strange critters. I have seen some pathetic looking dusters sold
in a lfs chain store here that I would not take for free, but my wife
bought and they look super and are doing fine. I bought FD from a
reputable shop that had them for a long time in the tanks and always
in bloom and looking great, and even after proper acclimation managed
to loose them within a month or two. I will say the wife is leaning
more to the cocoa worms now. I like the hard tube cocoa worms myself
and its interesting to see how much they add to their tubes over time.
The new shiney white tube as compared to the old gray coraline
covered portion is easy to see. You can certainly tell if calcium and
alk is an issue with a hard tube worm.

On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 16:07:22 GMT, George Patterson
wrote:

Marco Schwarz wrote:

In the 70s some of my feather dusters from the Mediterranean Sea were
able to (re)build their tubes using mud, clay-fine sediments and sand
but it seemed to be stressfull to them..

Well, the cluster of feathers keeps appearing and disappearing. I squeezed the
old tube as Tristan suggested, and it seemed to be empty, so I tossed it. I'd
like to get him out of that cave, but I can't easily reach him. I'd bet that
he's so curled around live rock that I couldn't get him out anyway.

George Patterson
Forgive your enemies. But always remember who they are.



-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!