Is there a fish that eats feather dusters?
 

Has anyone had a fish that ate feather dusters? I have too many in my tank. There are popping up between my zoas and corals and are a real pain!

They have brown tubes with a white and brown crown (not even pretty ones)

My cleaner shrimp used to pick at them... at least the pretty ones.... until they both died. :sad:

Copperband butterfly guaranteed. But they will eat every last one and have a poor survival record.

I had one pretty purple feather duster that was on a frag I bought off another canreef member. My Wrasse ate it!!! GRRR
But she won't touch these other ones.

Hi,
Copperband will do the job. Survival is a hit/miss. I kept one for almost five years, only prepared food that he/she would eat was Mysis, but was great at cleaning pest nems :smile:

Unfortuneately, your success with a copperband is a fairly rare exception.

Any small wrasse other than those that are algae eating should do the job.

I have a pair of C. ulietensis butterflies that eat them up like crazy. Problem is they eat everything else too. They'll turn a reef into a FOWLR.. So probably not all that helpful.

possibly peppermint shrimp.....

Hi,

Yes, I was lucky to get him/her from another reefer who managed to get the fish eating. Unfortunately, this past year it seemed to have lost its vision as it could no longer catch the food(mysis), it could sense the food was there but not able to catch it. I'd like to try another but as you said the success is fairly rare, and I don't really want to take the chance when the odds are not in my favour :neutral:

I would suggest to Amy if you were to get a Copperband, maybe get one from another reefer or from a LFS that can show you it's eating. I have not know one to eat flake or pellets, only mysis, oyster, mussels, etc. and nems/feather dusters of course.

Not sure what kind of wrasse you have in mind? I've kept quite a few over the years and have not know them to eat feather dusters. However, that could be because of my Copperband taking care of them.

my copperband ate all the feather dusters in about a day or 2. Now he eats fresh mussle and live white worms like there is no tomorrow. He has grow quite a bit.

Most copperband will eat fresh clam, oyster and mussles. Mussles are cheaper.

I still have a huge aiptasia in my aquarium that I keep for making babies...all the tons of aiptasia that I had are gone now, the copperband eat them too.

Matted filefish. Although they also sometimes pick at coral too. Mine eats feather dusters, aptasia and LPS :twised: He left my zoas and sps corals alone.

So far my Matted File is only picking at my aiptasia

Would a copperband go after the 2 little clams in my tank? I'll have to do some research on the care required for these.

Not typically, but sometimes it can happen. FWIW I had a CBB for 3 years alongside clams and there was never an issue with the clams. He loved expensive LPS though, Acans and Blastos were soon to be a thing of the past after I added him. With butterflies in general there's always something that they might decide to get a taste for. CBB's just happen to be among the "slightly better behaved" among butterflies, but then they tend to have a poor track record of adapting to captivity.

What about a long nose butterfly? I've never kept one but I've read in Scott Michael's books that they are more reef safe than a copperbanded butterfly and will eat tube worms.

My CBB that I had ate clams :sad: Left my frogspawn and hammer lps alone. They really do have a poor survival rate though.

I have a 4" clam in my tank and the copperband does not pay the slightest attention to it.

He does go at the oyster and mussels when I open them up. I think a live clam does not have the same food smell as a cut in half mussel At least both my niger trigger and my copperband gubble up the oyster and mussel in no time but none touch my live clam. I have a croccea. He does not touch my coral either, lps soft or sps. I have mine for around 3 months. I think the poor survival rate is due to people trying to force them to eat pellet or non appropriate food or they have been captured with cyanide. They do need to eat a lot.

+100000!

My longnose butterfly destroyed every tubeworm/feather duster within about 12 hours of being put into the tank. AND he looked everyday for more. Oh, and they're freakin' hilarious fish with tons of personality.

I have a solution that does not involve worrying about fish survivability or corals being eaten:

Arrow Crab. Most will eat feather dusters (though typically used to 'get rid of bristle worms'. Just tossing it out there.

Cheers,

Chris

sure, but where exactly do you find one? Never saw this for sale in my area, not even online?

J&L has them on their site.

Arrow crabs are sort of a specialized item that not all stores are going to stock all of the time because they probably aren't a big seller. But they seem to be a pretty standard item on the availability lists that I've looked at so I'm sure they can be bought almost anywhere. Even our LFS, Total Pet, brings them in on occasion... and they aren't much of a saltwater store.

I was at Aquarium Illusions and Big als in Edmonton yesterday and both of these stores had some for sale.

Yeah... as a reply I was just going to say that.. I see them commonly at those two stores here. Somewhere down that way (QU) should be able to order you one for sure!

i would never put another one of these in my tank... when they are small sure their great but when they get big they go after fish.... i lost a fire shrimp, pearly jawfish, and a chromis to mine.... it was in a rsm and i never found bodies for these and did see the arrow crap JUMP off the rockscape trying to grab fish..... i have heard that they may also stab fish with their spear shaped head...i never saw this behavior but it was extremely aggresive towards ALL posible food.....in the end my arrow crab was killed by my rusty angel and tobbacco bass.. everything in my tank ganged up on this crab and killed it... a real pay per view event.. and some how i was home to see it...

just my experience with my one and only arrow crab...

Copperband (and most other) butterflyfish are notorious featherduster eaters IME.

I have heard of this problem... but not with healthy fish. Also have heard many success stories with these critters.

Yet again... another example that basically no single fish or invert in our hobby sticks to the 'description' we give it. :lol:

Dropped in an Arrow Crab from JL Aquatics.

Not sure if he is eating them or not. Just see him sitting striking a pose for the past few days.

On another note, left a piece of live rock outside the tank for 2 hrs to dry up cuz it was full of dusters.

Put it back in the tank and they all popped back out...damn.