Nudibranch or some sort of sea slug ID NEEDED

[hotelbravo]

Hello all i found this guy crawling along the glass it seemed to have been eating algae but not positive. was hoping for an ID on him i have moved him to a little breeder box to keep track of him and added a small piece of seaweed sheet in hopes it does infact eat that but im turning to the experts for some advice!!
im wanting to keep it if its harmless. soooooo :celeb2: OR :headwalls:

 

[Reefstarter2]

never seen one like that before following along to find out

 

[pagojoe]

It's a crinkled-up Elysia or Thuridilla species. It's an algae eater.

 

[hotelbravo]

It's a crinkled-up Elysia or Thuridilla species. It's an algae eater.

ive been reading that they are picky on which algae they eat. do you happen to know off the top of your head which they like? i dont have alot of algae growing in the display just diatoms, corraline, and in some places some small patches of brown fuzzy algae but in my sump i have a bigger variety.. i have GHA, chaeto, caulerpa, dragons breath, lots of brown algae, and some cyanobacteria. the only problem is that i dont want to put the guy down there as i keep predatory snails in there and ive read that sea slugs are cousins of the snail just shell-less and i fear it could become preyed upon down there

 

[pagojoe]

I don't know specifically which species of algae it will eat, but definitely one of the species that's in your tank, or it wouldn't be in there . You probably have a lot of other algae species that you don't know about, in addition to the ones you listed. I'd probably leave it where it is, unless you think it got in the tank from the sump?

Cheers,



Don

 

[hotelbravo]

it was in a frag tank at my lfs i spotted it and asked the owner about it and he didnt know anything about it and was going to remove it and kill it because he didnt want it to eat any corals so i rescued it and brought it home to my tank

 

[pagojoe]

I got ya. In that case, it might have a better chance in the sump. They don't have particularly long life cycles, maybe from a few months to a year. I'm not sure what kind of defenses they have, but like everything else in the ocean, they probably have some.

Cheers,



Don

 

[inktomi]

As long as that defense isn't releasing a bunch of toxins

 

[hotelbravo]

Ive been debating getting someones unwanted rock with GHA on it or Bryopsis and putting it in my tank since i dont mind nusiance aglae grown like most people and then i can feed it and i would really want to buy some more slugs! this guy is so interesting i wish id find more in my lfs' tanks.