Bugs! Bugs and more Bugs

hahaha! I got plenty to share, believe me you.

 

Yea! I got a Bobbit Worm

 

HEY! I had taken notice that my white feather duster was getting smaller, I paid no mind to it, then just a few minutes ago when looking in the tank I seen this. One of those bugs was inside it and I swear it was eatting the feather part.

 

FWIW, i had a skunk cleaner shrimp that developed a taste for feather dusters and ate 4 of my dusters, and my amphipods just smelled/tasted the dying flesh so they just did there job....alot of times i hear of people saying amphipods are eating my coral but really they're just eating the already decaying flesh.

 

Guess I will need to keep an eye on that and try to get a look at whats going on.

 

Will there is not much left of his crown, the worm is still alive I am sure, so what should I do with it? leave it alone, pull it out of the tank?

 

Amphipods are a great part of the clean up crew, but sometimes their numbers can grow too great. They normally don't eat healthy corals, but when their food supply runs low, they eat what they can. They are opportunistic feeders. I've had the same problem that you are experiencing. Over time, their population stabilized and now there are no issues. I never found a reef predator that would effectively eat them.

 

If your tired of seeing them get a fish that eats them.

 

A Mandarin goby/mandarin dragonet will take them all out but then sooner or later you will start worrying about having a steady supply and hoping they keep multiplying because thats mainly all they eat

 

^^ It doesn't work that way. Adult amphipods are much too large for Mandarins to eat. Also, they are most active at night, when fish that could eat them, like wrasses, are sleeping.