Definitely a feather duster. Wait awhile and if you don't see the crown(the feathers) come out then feel free to remove the tube, its probably empty.What’s this? At first I thought maybe it was a spiorbid worm because I have some of those popping up but this one isn’t curled up like those are.
The tube is new, so hopefully there’s a feather duster in there (They’re good guys, right?). I’ll keep my eyes peeled.
Yes they are harmless filter feeders very fun to watch
I'll tell you what he told me, which is that it unfortunately is almost impossible to give an exact ID without some equipment you probably don't have.Update on the feather duster- its tube continues to wind around and has gotten thicker, too. Super fun to watch it grow!
I don’t know anything about this animal- is there a specific name for the *kind* of feather duster it is? I’d like to know more about it, like its max size and whether it might propagate in my tank.
Paging @ISpeakForTheSeas (am I allowed to do that?)
Haha, yeah, it's fine to tag me. I can tell you from the tube (which is a calcium carbonate tube that's hard rather than a mucus and sediment tube that would be leathery and flexible) that this is a Serpulid worm (family Serpulidae), but doing a species specific ID would require very close up pics, including some microscope pics (which wouldn't really be possible to get on the live worm without risking its health).
This second quote was for Sabellid worms, but with the focus being on showing the eyespots and such, it would still be useful here to give an idea of what to look for with any eyes the worm may have:
And, finally, my post linked below is about a different kind of polychaete than feather dusters, but it shows some of the sorts of things I'd be looking for with the chaetae of the worm (which aren't typically visible with the worm in its tube) and (between my post and the OP's post beneath it) gives an example of how intensive of microscope pics are required to show that stuff well enough for me to work with it for an ID:
Thanks for the reading material! I’ll be excited to see what new things I notice as it continues to grow in size.Haha, yeah, it's fine to tag me. I can tell you from the tube (which is a calcium carbonate tube that's hard rather than a mucus and sediment tube that would be leathery and flexible) that this is a Serpulid worm (family Serpulidae), but doing a species specific ID would require very close up pics, including some microscope pics (which wouldn't really be possible to get on the live worm without risking its health).
This first quote is directly related to Serpulid worms:
This second quote was for Sabellid worms, but with the focus being on showing the eyespots and such, it would still be useful here to give an idea of what to look for with any eyes the worm may have:
And, finally, my post linked below is about a different kind of polychaete than feather dusters, but it shows some of the sorts of things I'd be looking for with the chaetae of the worm (which aren't typically visible with the worm in its tube) and (between my post and the OP's post beneath it) gives an example of how intensive of microscope pics are required to show that stuff well enough for me to work with it for an ID:
If it's the only one in your tank, then I wouldn't expect more of them to appear, but it may get slightly larger and should stick around for awhile as long it likes where it's at.
