AtomHeart
New member
I ended up with a lot of hitchhikers on the one piece of live rock I put in my tank, to seed the rest of my dry rock...I felt bad because I knew that since I was curing dry rock in the tank, most of these hitchhikers were going to be wiped out by the oncoming storm of ammonia...but amazingly, nothing died.
I have a serpent star, or brittlestar...a crab that now lives in my refugium, some hydroids, some kind of zooanthus or mushroom anenome that looks like a little satellite dish that aims at the light source...and then this purple slug-like thing. I believe the purple slug is some kind of nudibranch or sea cucumber, but I'm not sure.
It is dark purple and reddish purple, which is the exact color of the coraline algae on the rock it rode in on. It has 5 flat sides to its body, and each flat side is separated by a faint row of fleshy hairs. Here is a slightly blurry picture if it will help anyone ID this creature:
When I saw that this creature lived through the ammonia spike, I felt like it has a fighting chance, even though my nitrite and nitrate are both through the roof right now. I figured if it was tough enough to survive this cycle, I'd welcome it into the new tank, but then tonight, I saw something I couldn't believe. This slug found itself a nice spaceous hole to lounge in, and it's head opened up, and out came 6 antler like branches making it look like a flower. These branches were clearly for sifting food out of the water column, as it would periodically take each of the six branches and wipe it through its mouth which was at the center of the flower. I was completely blown away...to shocked to think about getting the camera.
I now really want to keep this fellow alive if at all possible...its one of the most beautiful things I've seen in an aquarium. My questions are:
1. What is this thing?
2. Does it stand a chance of surviving the Nitrite?
3. Will it starve? What does it eat? Can I Feed it without wrecking my cycle?
Any help on keeping this fellow alive would be greatly appreciated.
I have a serpent star, or brittlestar...a crab that now lives in my refugium, some hydroids, some kind of zooanthus or mushroom anenome that looks like a little satellite dish that aims at the light source...and then this purple slug-like thing. I believe the purple slug is some kind of nudibranch or sea cucumber, but I'm not sure.
It is dark purple and reddish purple, which is the exact color of the coraline algae on the rock it rode in on. It has 5 flat sides to its body, and each flat side is separated by a faint row of fleshy hairs. Here is a slightly blurry picture if it will help anyone ID this creature:
When I saw that this creature lived through the ammonia spike, I felt like it has a fighting chance, even though my nitrite and nitrate are both through the roof right now. I figured if it was tough enough to survive this cycle, I'd welcome it into the new tank, but then tonight, I saw something I couldn't believe. This slug found itself a nice spaceous hole to lounge in, and it's head opened up, and out came 6 antler like branches making it look like a flower. These branches were clearly for sifting food out of the water column, as it would periodically take each of the six branches and wipe it through its mouth which was at the center of the flower. I was completely blown away...to shocked to think about getting the camera.
I now really want to keep this fellow alive if at all possible...its one of the most beautiful things I've seen in an aquarium. My questions are:
1. What is this thing?
2. Does it stand a chance of surviving the Nitrite?
3. Will it starve? What does it eat? Can I Feed it without wrecking my cycle?
Any help on keeping this fellow alive would be greatly appreciated.
