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Coco Worm/Feather Duster

D

Dave

I have some interest in getting a Coco worm. I wanted to know if others have had success keeping these.

I would also consider a feather duster, but the Coco worm appears to generally be more colorful.
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
Coco worms are much more attractive but also much harder to keep. They generally get much bigger and need very very good water quality. Feather dusters are much easier to keep and are more forgiving with water conditions. We have kept feather dusters for years and have yet to make the jump to coco worms.
 
I

Inquisitive

I have a coco worm....guess I've had it for a month, month and a half or so by now....so, for the long haul, I don't know....for the immediate though, it is doing great! It has contributed to the center piece of my tank....it is U shaped, so I have it ringed through a piece of live rock...seems like the area was made for it...it gets good flow and has already grown half an inch and appears to have a very healthy crown.....I have a 55 gallon tank and do a water change of five gallons every other week....thus far (started the tank in January) everything is happy and healthy!....I have a pretty decent clean up crew cuz I tend to feed heavy....I don't know if the worm is loving the water quality, the food, or I'm just lucky!.......I run the whisper 70 power filter so I can have carbon, phosban, and an aqua C remora skimmer....

I feed the following (not all the varieties every day, I alternate things, but the tank is getting each of these things weekly at minimum...some, daily).....frozen myisis shrimp, rod's food, zooplankton (dry, I mix it with water), rotifers, oyster feast, formulae 2 flakes (herbivore kind), tiny sinking pellets, and wafer like cycopleze....the worm seems to deal well with the rod's food, zooplankton, rotifers, and oyster feast...bigger items sometimes cause it to withdrawl into it's protective casing...all in all, I'm glad I got it and it is a great addition to my tank!
 
D

Dave

Thank you both for your input.

Inquisitive can you post a picture of your coco worm? I would love to see it.
 
T

thylacine

here is a pic of mine.It is nine months in my tank.I have nothing to say about caring for it. I feed phyto daily to my tank. It used to be higher in the tank but my clown harrassed it. It is always out now that it is low. I have a banded coral shrimp that hangs out by it and protects it.
 
T

thylacine

heres another with the shrimp.when I first set up my tank I bought a feather duster worm.I then bought a narcissurus? snail. as soon as I put the snail into the tank he immediatly went to the feather duster ,stuck his trunk in, pulled out the worm and killed it. It was awful. So I would imagine they would do the same to a coco worm.
 
malulu

malulu

NJRC Member
last yeat, my feather duster that looks death, because of the RBTA get too close to it all the time, and it ends up with a soft-tube with some feather hanging out, and when i touch it, it is not responding what so ever... but since it was stuck deep in the rock, so i left it along, and let it be... and after 3 weeks or so later, it mystery alive again!? last month, when my tank's water getting bad (a lots of algae grow next to it), it then never came out for more than 3 weeks, i though it is a sure goner now... but it just started to came out again last week (now, every day)... this same feather duster is in my tank for more than 3 years now.

i have a coco worm that seems death and did not came out for more than a month, so, i put it aside, and another months goes by, it started to come out again... have it for more than a year now.

i could have been lucky... bottom line is, they seems hardy... (knock on wood...)
;)
 
D

Dave

Is the Nassarius snail a known predator of these worms? I had not heard this, and it would definitely influence my purchase.
 
D

diverrk

I have both, my coco worm has been in my tank for about 6 months now, with no problems. My water qaulity I would say is good not perfect and have no issues
 
Sandee

Sandee

Ditto. My water quality if ok, but nothing special. I've had two for over 8 months now. Here's a live pix via Fishcam. http://www.sandeeland.com/fishcam

cam_7.jpg
 
jimroth

jimroth

I have never had one last a full year, tried twice. I have had some of the (unrelated) Hawaiian giant feather dusters for severalyears, I think they are better adapted to tank life.
 
S

shananagans

I have never kept feather dusters myself, but I believe them to be easier. I have had several coco worm, In fact it was one of the first things I put in my first reef tank. And it did great, I did nothing special for it, it was self sustaining.
 
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