shrimp attacking my feather duster

[ccny]

Hi All, I just bought a small feather duster for my 12 gal nano and placed it in the front left corner area of my tank. Initially, it was opening its crown but then my peppermint shrimp started to come up to it and nip at it every time it opened and now it hasn't been coming back out for a day now. Is this normal or does this bode poorly for the poor duster? Is there anything I can do about it without hurting something? Thanks.

 

[Anonymous]

if the feather duster is under constant stress it will expel its crown, animals have different personalities, i can not say that this is normal behavior on the part of the shrimp..i have feather dusters and have had several L wurdermanni (peppermint shrimp) and have never had a problem with them picking at anything..

 

[ccny]

does it matter that this is a nano? i guess this might mean that i'm not meant to keep feather dusters.

 

[Anonymous]

The Nano part doesnt make a difference...

 

[Ijkreef]

are you very sure you have a peppermint shrimp? camelback shrimps look similar (except for a hump) and are reputedly less safe.

 

[emjs777]

My peppermint shimp did the same exact thing. It would pick at the feathers and eat them or just pull them out, until it looked like my feather duster had gotten a haircut. I removed the shrimp as soon as I could but it already had done a lot of damage (they are hard to catch).

The duster dropped its crown about 3 weeks ago, and I haven't seen it since.

 

[emjs777]

UPDATE: Ironically, my feather duster just popped out for the first time with a brand new crown. Sweet.

 

[ccny]

just as a follow up, actually the duster plumes out nicely now and the shrimp no longer goes after it. definitely looks like a peppermint shrimp. the only thing is, i just bought my first coral, a rock with yellow polyps and the shrimp seems to like bugging that instead.

 

[rwoolley]

I have a related duster question. I have a 75g reef about 9 months old. about 15 mixed corals, all doing very well. 1 Yellow Tang, 1 Ocellaris Clown, 1 Blue Devil, Seprpent Stars, Hermits, Pepermint Shrimp. No problems at all. I added three dusters which all dropped their crowns in the first week. 2 grew back, then came out of their tubes and became fishfood. Any thoughts on a cause? :?

 

[Anonymous]

check your parameters...then i want to lean towards the Yellow tang possibly picking on it...ive seen yellow tangs pick at the tube, which would cause the dusters to stress and disgard their crowns...

 

[rwoolley]

Parameters are all good. I didn't see the Tang showing any interest at all, but... the world may never know. :?