OcalaReefGirl March 27, 2014 March 27, 2014 Hello! Well, today during my usual tank evaluation I discovered 30-40 baby nudibranchs on my tank glass. (I totally freaked because I though they were worms or something at first) After some research online I discovered that they are in fact baby lettuce nudibranchs. Does anyone have any advice or ideas to help keep the babies alive? They are really tiny. Looking at my tank tonight I probably have about 100 or more. I put a clump of chaeto from my sump into the tank and I haven't cleaned the glass so they might have something to munch on. They are simply too tiny to try and move or separated them. Any other ideas? Anything would be greatly appreciated!!! They are SO cute! They already have the antennae and the little tiny frills (not very many). I will try to take some pics tomorrow when my lights are back on.
matt March 27, 2014 March 27, 2014 Can you get a pic? Any chance they are berghia? http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-01/ac/feature/ If so, congrats...and let me grab a dozen babies from you.
paul b March 27, 2014 March 27, 2014 (edited) Do they look like this, If they do, they are not nudibranch's but slugs. I raised them and wrote an article about them here: http://breedersregistry.org/maquaculture/elysia-crispata-sea-slug-spawning-in-a-100-gallon-reef-aquarium/ Edited March 27, 2014 by paul b
smallreef March 27, 2014 March 27, 2014 Okay...not to scare you but do they look like the ones that Paul posted or like these.... These are zoa eating nudibranchs....
OcalaReefGirl March 27, 2014 Author March 27, 2014 No, they are technically not nudibranchs. They are lettuce sea slugs (but doesn't nudibranchs sound better? ) anyway. They look like supper tiny versions of the pic from Paul b. I will get a pic up later today. I have 2 lettuce nudibranchs in the tank just didn't expect babies so soon.
smallreef March 27, 2014 March 27, 2014 Oh phew! That's awesome though..glad its cute babies and not evil ones,lol
OcalaReefGirl March 27, 2014 Author March 27, 2014 Hey Paul b, great article. So what was the outcome? Did your babies survive to adulthood? Did you just keep getting babies? Did you ever find something/ algae that they did prefer?
paul b March 27, 2014 March 27, 2014 (edited) They did survive and I had hundreds of them. As babies they eat algae. Actually they suck out the juice, but as adults they live on sunlight. I gave a bunch of them to a researcher to study as they are called Solar Powered slugs as they are the only "real" animal that lives in sun. Except for coral which is kind of a stupider animal. They live on Bryopsis and will be no help with hair algae. Nudibranch's are a completely different animal than slugs. Kind of like the difference between Myley Cyrus and Pavoriti. Edited March 27, 2014 by paul b
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