Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

I always wanted a Nudibranch like in our logo. I havent seen a fish, coral or invertebrate as pretty or as interesting as a Nudibranch. Other than the rather ugly Lettuce Nudibranch has anyone seen or heard of one suriving for any period of time?

i heard they werent very long...but depends on what you call survival....powerhead survival, rock squish survival...overflow survival...hehe, nah, but i heard theyre not very long and they can pollute your tank if left in the tank when dead...but theyre pretty tho

I heard that the lettuce nudibranch had a life span of only 90 days. I don't know it the other are the same I didn't see much information on them. I wouldn't take the chance of polluting my tank with one that died.

Scott

But they are soooo pretty.

I have had three different ones. I had the purple, yellow and the pinkish red known as the Spanish Dancer. The purple and yellow lived about two weeks maybe and the Spanish Dancer I saw for about 20 min in my tank and it has never been seen since. The books say, that they are not sure what they eat, the same species will eat different things and each one only eats one thing. They only are aware of what they eat if they are caught in the wild while they are eating and then you may not have it in your tank. Even the experts are not sure about these beautiful creatures.

Its really a shame, I want one but I know what its fate would be.

I was reading somewhere, when I was trying to figure out the logo, that there is one type that eats other sea slugs? Is this correct. They said it's survival time was the longest, as long as you were willing to feed it.

I believe it mentioned that the natural survival rate for most of these animals in the wild was only a month or so . Even if they eat. The fact that they starve to death in the aquarium did not seem to shorten thier lives significantly , since they alrady had such short lives.

Again..this is not only just what I read...but it is also from memory... a dangerous combination.

** free grain of IO salt to take with this info **

Well the have a voracious appetite, some are several species that eat Anemones and several a day. Some eat sponges, others eat soft corals. Either way I cant afford to feed one, even the lettuce Nudibranch eat a ton of algae and you cant keep enough algae to feed one for any amount of time. That is to say that it does not get into a powerhead.

I got a bunch of lettuce nudis recently with an algae kit I ordered. I had heart great things about their ability to eat algae and also hear the horror stories of powerheads and nudi together!

Mine lasted a few days I guess....the last difinite prrof I had they they MIGHT still be there was the head of one sitting on a rock!!!!!!!!!!!


As for the other varieties, I too would love to have some. Maybe with the new tank (no pwerheads or overflows) I would have better luck!

Elizabeth

I think a non mechanical system would be the only way, or very fine strainers on all moving parts. I had something that looked like one a while back. Had it for nearly a year and I think it crawled out of the tank. Looked like a lettuce nudi/slug.