purple and yellow nurdibranch?

[Milez803]

anyone know if the purple and yellow nudibranch can live at tank..i been reading up some information trying to find out what they eat..some people tell me that these slug don't survive in captive...any information would be helpful

 

[pagojoe]

The purple and yellow ones will be chromodorids, most likely, and will eat only one or a few species of tropical sponges (and nothing you are likely to be able to grow long-term in your tank, at least at a rate faster than the nudibranch can eat it). If they are well-fed before you get them, it may take a couple of months for them to starve to death in your tank.

Cheers,


Don

 

[dendro982]

Take a look here and here . Is it it?
If you will have the name of your nudibranch, there is a chance to identify what sponge it needs for a feeding (Food Habits of Nudibranchs).

The next problem will be to find the source of supply of the required sponge, what ia practically impossible for us, living far away from their native habitat and relying on import.

I tried to order it for my Chromodoris magnifica and Chromodoris quadricolor without success. Bought all locally available sponges and have several kinds of hitchhiker sponges, tried to offer them as a substitutes, no luck. Lost them.

More in general on feeding nudibranches here.

If you will be able to find solution or additional information, post please for all of us.

 

[pagojoe]

In addition to the problem of obtaining a supply of the food sponge, assuming it's known, a major problem is actually identifying the sponge correctly in the field. Some of them look very similar, and can only be separated by microscopic differences such as comparing spicules. They may look the same, but many of the nudi's only feed on a single species, and they can apparently tell the difference even if we can't. Another problem, as Dr. Rudman once pointed out, is that there is a worldwide shortage of sponge taxonomists, so even if you have the food sponge in hand, it may be difficult to get it identified correctly. Assuming you succeed, you're back to the problem of getting someone in the field to accurately identify the same sponge and collect it for you, which is a fairly tall order for most of the guys that collect for the aquarium trade. It might even be a tall order for the experts.

Cheers,



Don

 

[Freed]

It is very irresponsibe of any LFS to order or even sell any nudibranchs except a couple that are known to eat hair algae or aiptasia. Most(prolly 99%) will die in captivity.