Flower vs Weed

[ultimatemj]

So I've got these small feather duster worms that proliferate and I'm beginning to wonder if they were a mistake

They came in on a tonga live rock with a bunch of mushrooms and helped the tank look 'more natural'.

Now I'm finding egg streams every morning and picking them out of corals...

Not sure I have any options other than manual 'thinning'...

Some folks like dandelions, do you?

 

[jgraz]

Can't see your pics

 

[TriggerThis]

The feather dusters are great and hurt nothing, but the only way you can have such an explosion of them is if you're grossly over feeding the tank.

I was feeding soo much in my tank, at one point the entire sandbed of a 100 gal was solid tube worms.
But I didn't mind Bc They were eating all the leftover food in the tank.
I've since cut way back and the population of the worms has done the same

 

[ultimatemj]

Sorry the pics were linked...

Interesting point about the feeding. Being filter feeders, I bet their population is related to the reef roids I've been use weekly!

 

[TriggerThis]

Oh yeah lol
Reef roids can also be called feather duster roids too lol
And yeah that's a lot of them wow.

 

[NanaReefer]

Those are way cool! I say leave them be!

 

[ultimatemj]

So, here is the best reference on them I've found.

Sounds like I need to refine my feeding approach, increase/improve my skimmer/skimming and manually remove the ones I don't like from a vanity stand point.

 

[TriggerThis]

That's a good plan. Take out the ones crowding your corals and revise your feeding so they don't keep multiplying

 

[pecman347]

Yup had the same experience when feeding reef roids and reef chili!