slug id? really weird looking

[Blown76mav]

Ok so last night I was showing the wife how the carnation was starting to show signs of improvement when I notice my GSP is all retracted ( it hardly ever does that) so I look a little closer and low and behold I see a gorilla crab in a cave behind the GSP munching on something, well luckly it was on a rock that could be removed._ So I removed the rock and sprayed it with freshwater, well not only did I get that big sucker but I got a little crab and a bristleworm ( casuality of war)._ Well now I'm relived because tomorrow I'm getting a whole bunch of new corals and I don't want anything to happen to them._

Fast forward to today (corals are all in place, everything looks great in the dark)

I'm admiring a coral with a flashlight and what do I see?_ Another &*%#ing crab claw._ Well I know what to do, remove rock spray with water._ So I do, I get it and a baby, hey this is getting pretty easy._ Then I notice something fuzzy on the rock._ I poke at it with a skewer and it pops off and curles up like a potato bug._ Well I didn't kill it but it is in the refugium in a container until I can identify it.

Kinda looks like a fuzzy slug._ Any ideas?

 

[tetra-tag]

Does your slug thing appear to have a hard shell, or rather plates of shell on it's back? It could be a mollusc called a Chiton, or a similar animal called a Cryptoplax which has smaller plates.
http://www.nudipixel.net/species/cryptoplax_sp/

There is more than one species in both groups so yours may not match the picture but you get the idea. I think the Chiton is reef safe, and I was under the impression that the Cryptoplax was similarly behaved.

Stenoplax is another name mentioned in the Sprung Invertebrates book. "Reef safe in most cases. Herbivorous. Filamentous algae, cyanobacteria and diatoms. Some species reported to feed on coral tissue."

 

[noahm]

Looks like mine. Came with my Florida rock. Best I could find is a common name of Hairy Sea Slug. Seems to be harmless in my sump. Thats where he was originally found and left.

 

[greenbean36191]

The "slug" is a chiton. It's a harmless grazer.

Cryptoplax and Stenoplax are just genera of chitons.

Noahm, your "slug" is a sea cucumber.

 

[Blown76mav]

Thanks, with so many things being "not reef safe" I wanted to make sure.

 

[noahm]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14758206#post14758206 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by greenbean36191


Noahm, your "slug" is a sea cucumber.

actually, my 'slug' is a slug, not a cuke. In fact it can form a very cat-like 'head' similar to a sea hare. I just haven't positively ID him yet.

You should learn to be less sure of yourself. Like 'Are you sure its not a cuke?'. Otherwise it comes across kind of 'confidently wrong'. I am well aware of the difference.

His does appear to be a chiton

 

[greenbean36191]

There are only a few main groups of sea slugs in the world and each has a pretty distinctive body plan. The animal in your pic doesn't resemble most of them, so the possibilities are narrowed down quite a bit right off the bat. Of the few groups it could potentially match, the diversity in FL is fairly low and none could be mistaken for your animal unless the picture posted here is extremely deceptive. If it does have a cat-like head that would be a pretty diagnostic feature and given a good picture I could almost guarantee I could positively ID it within a few minutes if it is in fact a slug.

However, given the picture posted above, your animal appears to have tube feet, which are diagnostic of an echinoderm rather than a mollusk. It's also nearly identical to one of the small sea cucumbers from FL that is a common hitchhiker on LR.