Feather Duster lifespan

[jtl2]

Curious as to the average lifespan of a feather duster worm. A couple of web sites state around 1.5 years. I've only had one feather duster and was wondering if that is the average lifespan? What is the general experience from the folks on this forum?

John

 

[sprinklerdudes]

not sure I have had the small ones that hitch hiked into my tank on some live rock since last oct. its march now, and they have happily multiplied

 

[Aquascaper]

This is an excellent question, and one (I must say) I don't believe we have enough study yet to give a definative answer to.

IME- Coco worms usually have comparatively longer lifespands in the reef aquaria than their soft tubed cousins...

Most of the family of feather dusters are benthic living creatures in the wild and therefore are fed considerably higher amounts of food than available in the averaged closed system....

This rather hardy invert may actually suffer from an extreme lack of dietary needs that would lend support to the idea that these inverts eventually die from starvation and not due to their age.?,

Due to the lack of overlapping, wild, lifespand studies of these worms it is difficult to tell wether we are prolonging their life in captive reefs of shortening them....

If a feather duster sheads its head feathers (for whatever reason) and it grows back within a month....And the head feathers are smaller than the original duster head- this is a tell-tell sign of malnutrician and steps to up the dusters food uptake need to be addressed.

This may actually be a good Thesis study for postgraduate work?????

 

[Troylee]

Great subject... I just picked a cb butterfly to erradicate mine there getting out of hand, since I feed my tank a whole bunch... So far in 2 days he hasn't touched them but is taking frozen food... Hopefully he don't aquire a taste for my sps since it is all I got...

 

[Wy Renegade]

I've had my large Feather duster for over two years now, and the fellow I got him from had him for quite awhile before that (don't know for sure how long). The little ones come and go all the time in my sump/tank though