Danacus Maximus
New member
Hello, I recently made an interesting observation in one of my coral holding tanks: around 100 tiny lettuce nudibranchs from about 1 to 10 mm's in length crawling about, grazing on the algae in one of our coral tubs. We keep a lot of adult lettuce sea slugs in the same system in different tubs to take advantage of the system's lighting before they are shipped out. Frequently, they will lay egg ribbons and there is nothing in their tub that might predate on them.
Now, normally, I am very skeptical when people claim they have larger organisms breeding, hatching, surviving the larval stage, and maturing to adulthood in their aquarium. Normally, most larva starve to death, are ground up in the filtration, or are consumed. It's interesting to note, however, that while the system has been up for about half a year, nudibranchs have been laying eggs during this period and I have encountered a few "rogue" individuals that were smaller than any of the stock I had purchased. Previously, I assumed these were hitchhikers on some of the new corals that had come in. Now, though, I suspect only a very few select larva surivived because conditions were not proper for their survival. In this one specific tub out of 8, the conditions had developed to a specific "sweet spot" for the larva and they were able to settle, survive, grow, and thrive, apparently.
Unfortunately, there is so much going on in this specific coral holding system that it's difficult to isolate what specific conditions might give rise to successful larval development. Nowhere else in the entire system is there any sign of large scale lettuce sea slug development. The refugium below has non, the neighboring ricordea tubs to the left and right don't have any, and I've only seen 1 or 2 in the tub with the parents and anemones. If they are infact reproducing succesfully, this one specific tub harbors the secret. I have some photos, but I'm not sure how to host them on the forums.
Any comments?
Now, normally, I am very skeptical when people claim they have larger organisms breeding, hatching, surviving the larval stage, and maturing to adulthood in their aquarium. Normally, most larva starve to death, are ground up in the filtration, or are consumed. It's interesting to note, however, that while the system has been up for about half a year, nudibranchs have been laying eggs during this period and I have encountered a few "rogue" individuals that were smaller than any of the stock I had purchased. Previously, I assumed these were hitchhikers on some of the new corals that had come in. Now, though, I suspect only a very few select larva surivived because conditions were not proper for their survival. In this one specific tub out of 8, the conditions had developed to a specific "sweet spot" for the larva and they were able to settle, survive, grow, and thrive, apparently.
Unfortunately, there is so much going on in this specific coral holding system that it's difficult to isolate what specific conditions might give rise to successful larval development. Nowhere else in the entire system is there any sign of large scale lettuce sea slug development. The refugium below has non, the neighboring ricordea tubs to the left and right don't have any, and I've only seen 1 or 2 in the tub with the parents and anemones. If they are infact reproducing succesfully, this one specific tub harbors the secret. I have some photos, but I'm not sure how to host them on the forums.
Any comments?
