Feather duster dead?

[JLH-l3ioCub3]

Just found the head of my feather duster caught in my overflow detached from the tube. I'm assuming the rest of the body is in the tube but I'm not sure if it may still be alive.. Maybe it molted?? Do they molt?

It doesn't look like the tube is decaying and I haven't seen the body of the worm but it may be possible that it died last night and came out of the tube and the CUC ate him and left the feathers.



This is the feathers or head I took out of the overflow.



This is the tube.

Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: .2
Phosphate: 0
Salinity: 1.026
PH: 8.2

 

[austinsdad]

They often blow their crown if stressed. Not a sure sign its dead. Best case - it'll relocate, build a new tube, grow a new crown, and you'll see him again in a few months. Worst case - it blew the crown, tried to crawl around relocate and was eaten by somebody or died of natural causes - and then eaten.

 

[JLH-l3ioCub3]

They often blow their crown if stressed. Not a sure sign its dead. Best case - it'll relocate, build a new tube, grow a new crown, and you'll see him again in a few months. Worst case - it blew the crown, tried to crawl around relocate and was eaten by somebody or died of natural causes - and then eaten.

Cool. I was thinking it may have been a stupid question so I'm glad its legitimate. Lol. It makes a lot of sense that it was stressed because my cleaner shrimp was relentlessly picking at it I assume trying to get all the food it collected out of the water... Hopefully it just relocated. It seems likely. There really isn't anything that I see could have eaten it if it relocated so there's a good chance he found some crevice to crawl into and is fine.

Thanks for the help!

 

[JLH-l3ioCub3]

Just got home from work and looked around the tank with a flashlight and I'm 90% sure I found it in a crevice between two rocks. It's definitely something semi large I haven't seen there for a couple weeks... And it's definitely a creature of some sort I would have noticed.
Fingers crossed. Hopefully it comes back out soon!

 

[JLH-l3ioCub3]

Just had to let you guys know that when a feather duster sheds its crown it doesn't necessarily move out of its tube and it doesn't take months to grow the crown back. My feather duster never left its tube and it's crown has started growing back and it is doing very well. Crown is about 1 inch long now and growing very fast. Didn't look at the time of my last post but id say its been about 2-3 weeks. If I remember I'll post pics tomorrow when lights are on.