Featherdusters annoying Zoas?

[Maverick00]

Ive been struggling the last few months with a couple small zoa colonies. Ive relocated them to a darker lit/ lower flow area at the bottom of the tank which seemed to help for abit but im once again watching them start to fade away. taking a close look i noticed more and more featherdusters on or near the colonies. Could it be the featherdusters are irritating the zoas to the point where they can not fully open and start dieing off? Its seems like there are more and more on the rock every month.
http://i1087.photobucket.com/albums/j466/RangerFX409/DSCN04571024x768.jpg

[reefwars]

absolutely in fact anything will bother zoas they are very finiky for staying open be it sand, food,critters or anything else that rubs up against it, its its way of defense, even if it poses no problem or threat the zoas cant just tell whats a problem and whats not and so to play it safe it will close untill it feels the threat is gone if it never goes then it will open and close untill it starves from not feeding;)

[Maverick00]

hm ok interesting. Would it be recommended to perhaps try to remove some of these dusters manually? Or some kind of dipping solution?

[paddyob]

Easy to remove them. Use tweezers and they come off the colony easily.

I have colonizing feather dusters That sometimes irritate my Zoas.

[Maverick00]

Ill give it a shot, thanks guys :biggrin: