black lipods?

I have a ton of them in my tank, and as far as I've been able to observe, they eat algae. They keep my rocks clean and every so often I find one on the glass.

I wish people weren't so quick to kill everything they aren't familiar with. Mine came on liverock from a thriving reef aquarium, and I've never seen anything to lead me to believe they are the slightest bit destructive. They're good guys and interesting looking as a bonus.
 
Think of it this way: this guys hitchhike on live rock, which usually doesn't have anything on it other than film algae. And they survive in brand new tanks and established reefs alike. So really, unless they are eating rock, the only thing that is present in everyone's aquarium, in enough numbers for these animals to grow and spawn, is algae. My hope that my Scutus will eat my hair algae may be a pipe dream, but at the very least they eat film algaes -- why purchase animals to fill in that niche when you can have them for free? I'm glad the rest of yours are going to live on in your reef.
 
Elysia- I don't think they eat hair algae at all, unless it is at the very beginning stages, at least from what I can tell. My sea hare and Mexican turbo seem to be the only things that will touch it other than my foxface.
 
The thing I don't understand is if the eat algae? Why they wouldn't eat algae from some corals as I read in a book.?? A reef question.. I wouldn'd care about them if it were not for my corals
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14218011#post14218011 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Elysia
Michelle: understood; if you read my post above, I believe they eat film algae.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I read it as you knew they eat film algae but hoped they ate hair algae as well. I think I've lost the ability to understand basic posts these days. :lol:
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14218511#post14218511 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Brent RH
The thing I don't understand is if the eat algae? Why they wouldn't eat algae from some corals as I read in a book.?? A reef question.. I wouldn'd care about them if it were not for my corals
Click to expand...

I don't ever see them get near the corals in my tank, and I can actually see a few of them from where I am as I type this. However, if they do eat algae off of corals, what would make that a bad thing? I mean, assuming they are getting bad stuff off of the corals without eating the coral itself?

As I said, I got all of my live rock from a single source, so I KNOW that every elephant slug/scutus/whatever your preferred name for them is came from a long established, thriving reef tank. If she had an anemone, sps, lps, palys, zoas, etc with no problems, why would I believe that they were harmful, especially when my own observations lead me to believe otherwise?
 
Hee Hee, I hold out hope that everything will eat hair algae!

Brent, are you concerned about the symbiotic algae that is in the coral? Very few critters eat coral to get to that stuff -- the only ones that I can think of are parrotfish. Its as though most animals don't even know the algae is in there -- the relationship is symbiotic because the coral lives off of some of the algae's cast offs, and the algae is protected by the coral's tissue.
Like Michelle posted, if your corals have an algal film growing on them, then you'll want it off, so the snail eating that film would be a good thing.
Scutus spp. have probably received a bad rap because they have been seen cleaning an algal film off a coral -- an animal on another doesn't mean that animal is eatting the other, just like a crab may be accused of killing a fish when it is scavengering its dead body.
 
my concern would be of the internal algae that I read of them going after. The start of this thread I guess. They are a good conversation piece so i'd like them to stay if they are ok. I have a book called REEF AQUARIUM FISHES---BY SCOTT W MICHAEL. There is a book identical to this only for inverts at my LFS. I would take it with a grain of salt if this book I have for fish weren't so helpful and seemingly accurate.
 
Shimek's book? What page? I can't find anything about them in his book. The only thing that he has that is similar is the egg "cowrie," Ovulidae family, which isn't really similar but has a white shell and black mantle and does eat coral. But that isn't the same thing as the Scutus.
 
The LFS's book is a pocket expert guide like the fish book, right? Marine invertebrates: 500+ essential-to-know aquarium species by Ronald Shimek. I have the same book, sitting in front of me. The page I linked to, it was also written by Ronald Shimek.

I couldn't find anything in the book about the Scutus snail. But I did find stuff in the link. I was just trying to show you that even Dr. Shimek has good things to say about Scutus snails.

I think you mis-identified your creature when looking it up in the invertebrate book. It is possible that you thought that the Ovula ovum on p. 307 was your animal, as they look similar to cowries (which is what someone assumed you were talking about earlier.) This is my guess, or else I missed where Scutus spp. are mentioned in the book.
 
Hey, no problem. Just really want clemency for these very cool snails. I hope you'll be able to enjoy them, now.
 
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