Do cleaner shrimp eat feather dusters?

[thatmanMIKEson]

I just got some k.p live rock that had 6 big brown plain feather dusters that were kinda nice but they have slowly been disappearing. There is only 2 clowns 1 clown goby 3 cleaner shrimp, a small emerald crab and 3 red hermits.

Would any of these eat the worms that fast I noticed one missing within a hour. The tube and all, the cleaner shrimp are little aggressive pigs but I have only seen them "cleaning" the tubes, when I'm watching. I also think I hear a pistol shrimp every once an awhile.

Let me know what the thoughts are I liked the dusters they were doing good in quarantine with phyto feeding, but im sure the last 2 won't be around much longer ....

 

[Timfish]

I doubt the clraner shrimp are actually eating the feather dusters but if they are picking at the tubes I'm pretty sure the feather dusters won't like the irritation. Feather dusters do have the ability of dropping thier feathers then regrowing them and leaving their tube and making a new one in a more favorable location.

 

[Schraufabagel]

They don't. I have had 4 feather dusters in my nano with a cleaner shrimp for around 7 months with no issues

 

[KMCA]

I'm new to the hobby but I'd put my money on the crabs before the shrimp

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

so i think it was to much light the one in the shade is doing great all the others were in direct light, the lone large survivor is in the shade. there is also several small ones all over the rocks..

i apologize to the cleaner shrimps i dont believe they had anything to do with the duster disappearance, but they are still getting the boot for walking on my corals with no care, ALL THE TIME!!!

 

[Bombschell]

so i think it was to much light the one in the shade is doing great all the others were in direct light, the lone large survivor is in the shade. there is also several small ones all over the rocks..

i apologize to the cleaner shrimps i dont believe they had anything to do with the duster disappearance, but they are still getting the boot for walking on my corals with no care, ALL THE TIME!!!

They do that no matter what, but they don't really seem to irritate the coral too bad. What I had to watch for was the shrimp prying open the polyp's mouth to steal undigested food from the coral. I believe this led to the death of a nice micromussa colony due to the shrimp damaging the soft tissue and causing an infection. Now when I feed the corals I leave a pile of food for the shrimp in a hard to reach hole and shoe it away with a stick if I need to.

 

[damsels are not mean]

If the shrimp wanted to eat them they would be all gone one night not slowly disappearing. They could be simply starving or something else.