southstar066
New member
i found a blue and yellow nudi at my LFS and was wondering how hard they are to keep? I have an sps dominate tank. tank is a year established. thanks for the help
how hard are algea eatting nudis to keep
- Thread starter southstar066
- Start date
greenbean36191
Premium Member
An algae eating nudibranch would be impossible to keep because they don't exist. ALL nudibranchs are carnivores, most with very specific diets that we can't really meet in the hobby.
Lettuce slugs (not nudibranchs) can range from easy to hard. There are at least 3 species sold as lettuce slugs, all with different diets and there's still some disagreement about what exactly each one eats. One seems to only eat Caulerpa, one feeds on hair algae, and one feeds on calcifying green algae and maybe hair algae as well. The difficulty is in getting a species that matches the type of algae you have for it to eat (and the species are hard to tell apart, even for some experts) and in keeping them from getting shredded by pump and powerhead intakes.
Given that the slug at the LFS is blue and yellow, it probably is a true nudibranch, in which case it definitely does not eat algae and will be impossible to keep.
Lettuce slugs (not nudibranchs) can range from easy to hard. There are at least 3 species sold as lettuce slugs, all with different diets and there's still some disagreement about what exactly each one eats. One seems to only eat Caulerpa, one feeds on hair algae, and one feeds on calcifying green algae and maybe hair algae as well. The difficulty is in getting a species that matches the type of algae you have for it to eat (and the species are hard to tell apart, even for some experts) and in keeping them from getting shredded by pump and powerhead intakes.
Given that the slug at the LFS is blue and yellow, it probably is a true nudibranch, in which case it definitely does not eat algae and will be impossible to keep.
geffhardy2
New member
I have had about 6 Lettuce slugs and a few other nudi slugs and i would say they do ok for a few months and then seem to vanish into thin air. their is not alot known about their eating habits.
There was a literature review done about ten years ago in an attempt to compile the known food sources of nudibranches, but it only contains the nudibranchs, not all seaslugs. IF you know which nudibranch you are dealing with then you can look it up and see what it was reported to be feeding on (or, sometimes, just found on.) Of course, even if you know what your slug is, that doesn't guarantee that you will be able to identify the organism that your slug eats, which makes providing that food all the more difficult.
http://people.ucsc.edu/~mcduck/nudifood.htm
http://people.ucsc.edu/~mcduck/nudifood.htm
Similar threads
