Does this hitch hiker have a chance?

[FDchase]

Got a white feather duster hitch hiker with some zoas. Been there maybe 3 months now and has doubled in size but still tiny. How likely is it to survive? If I want to keep it should I feed the tank something?

 

[ShepherdReefer]

Hard to see.

 

[KrisReef]

Took me 15 minutes to find it, but I see it now there hiding in the sand.

Ok, for keeping it alive, it seems to be growing under the current conditions so don't change anything and it should keep growing?! Also, I think that might be a "Cluster Duster" which hang out in clusters, so perhaps it will start reproducing (are these self propagating? I'm Toolazy to look it up, atm).

The bad news is, now that now you have identified this thing it so often has been my experience that a crab, fish, or some other creature in the tank will also take notice of it and eat that feather worm for lunch. Hope that doesn't happen in this case but so often, before I finish typing the situation changes dramatically, and then

.

 

[FDchase]

Well I first spotted it shortly after getting the little zoa colony. It disappeared after a week or two and when I moved the colony recently I found out it had moved into the sand. Again it was absolutely tiny, I mean it’s still tiny but it is about double the size now. As for crabs and fish it’s been in the open spot for maybe 2 weeks now. That’s actually a hermit just above it in the pic, they don’t seem to care. And the only fish in the tank are a pair of clowns.
If it does happen to be a cluster type that would be cool but I only ever see brown dusters so it would be really cool to have a white one.
And it is still living after 9pm PST

 

[FDchase]

And as for the bad picture every time I turned up whites it would hide and the angle through the glass for a direct picture it gets distorted. For location it’s in the sand next to the single zoa polyp.

 

[KrisReef]

And as for the bad picture every time I turned up whites it would hide and the angle through the glass for a direct picture it gets distorted. For location it’s in the sand next to the single zoa polyp.

I taught my children to smile for the camera while they were young and it was a hard task but eventually they realized that pictures of themselves look better if they made a nice face and smile for the camera. My fish and corals and clams must have gone to school with your featherduster as they are very difficult to photograph

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Well I first spotted it shortly after getting the little zoa colony. It disappeared after a week or two and when I moved the colony recently I found out it had moved into the sand. Again it was absolutely tiny, I mean it’s still tiny but it is about double the size now. As for crabs and fish it’s been in the open spot for maybe 2 weeks now. That’s actually a hermit just above it in the pic, they don’t seem to care. And the only fish in the tank are a pair of clowns.
If it does happen to be a cluster type that would be cool but I only ever see brown dusters so it would be really cool to have a white one.
And it is still living after 9pm PST

As mentioned, if it has been growing for you, you're doing something right with it. Phytoplankton may benefit it, but it's also unnecessary if your worm is doing well - so, unless you're confident that you could start adding phytoplankton without messing anything else up in your tank (like your nutrients), I'd say there's no reason to change anything at this point.

 

[His Coral Highness]

I think the fact that it doubled in size says enough. Don't fix what's not broken

 

[FDchase]

I’ll leave it be then. I was just worried about it. Tank is fairly new so things have been popping up strong then disappearing one day. Just didn’t want the duster to disappear.