Brown Feather Dusters

[Gilbert]

i have these brown feather dusters that just popped out of no where and are camping out with a colony of zoas. i think the zoas look pretty cool, they're yellowish skirts with brown mouths, but im worried that this tube things might be bad. they have been on my sand bed for a long time now and i was think about giving them to the pay it forward program. but dont want to infest someones tank. should i toss the colony or is it ok to have in my tank

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk89/Gilbert1606/DSC01050.jpg

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk89/Gilbert1606/DSC01047.jpg
all the polyps are usually open but i had just stirred up the sand

[Gilbert]

bump

[Joe31]

trash them. I'll take them from you :bigsmile:

[Gilbert]

you can have them, but you have to pick them up in the southside this weekend. because im going to trash them

[Andrew v.s wild]

I wish my tank would sprout something cool!
The other day i spotted a little starfish on one of my rocks
About the size of a eraser :)
thats kinda cool

[profntbtr]

i believe the little brown feather dusters are actually hydroids, in which case they are no good

[Kristy]

The brown feather dusters vines are probably not going to hurt anything, and we have heard they are good filter feaders, helping somewhat to keep nitrates in check. We used to have a bunch in our tank. Our's sprouted during a period of really high nutrients (heavy feeding while trying to keep a flowerpot alive) and have mostly died off now due to less nutrients in the tank. JMO, they are probably fine, but if you think they are ugly, then it is nice of you to give them to someone else who wants them.

Do they actually have soft tubes with the small feather dusters that come out or are they just the little hard tubes, with maybe a single strand coming out? Those are hydroids, and the strand can sting other corals, which is not good. Hope that helps.

Andrew vs Wild, the small starfish is probably an asterina star, which some people have an issue with them reaching plague proportions in thier tanks. We have some in both the small and large tank and have not really had a problem with them (yet :))

-Mike (& Kristy)