lettuce nudibranch

[tommyp]

Hi,
I have been trying to find info on the lettuce nudibranch and have found basically scientific info but wanted to have some peoples feedback who had them in their tank. I have read that they are reef safe and eat algae. They also have an affinity for powerheads but since I don't have any in tank I think I am okay.

Thanks

Tom

 

[Jakets]

I had one for a short time. Mine was cut into three pieces in the over flow. But did live for about a month or at least one piece did. At about the month point the PH got it.
If you are looking for a good algae cleaner I would get more snails before the Nudi, unless it's just the Nudi you want. In Vancouver BC it seems every LFS has quite a few.

J

 

[ReefLady]

I had a couple to eat bryopsis.

This may sound mean, but I found mine to be incredibly stupid. I literally had to drop them on top of the bryopsis all the time. I stopped dropping them on the bryopsis, and they stopped eating it, eventually they wasted away.

If you have high flow areas at all, powerheads, overflow, anything, don't expect them to last long.

They are pretty, but more trouble than they're worth IMO and in the case of mine, I wished I had left them in their environment.

There are much better algae eaters out there.

Travis

 

[wooddood]

i also had one a while back,i put him in the tank and have'nt seen him since.dont know what happened to him.i would'nt get another one though.just my 2cents.

 

[jlserr]

Ok, at first it is not a nudibranch, it's a sacoglossa (Elysia Crispata), hervibourous and kind of photosyntetic... Light will help but it's not enough.

Problems with sacoglossas and nudibranchs is that it's very dificult to feed them, they use to change feeding habits and they do not well easily.

Once I bough an Elysia Diomedea, i gave it all the kind of algae I could but it didn't make it. It passad away in one month.

These kind of animals are very hard to keep and I'll never try to keep one again. It's terrible how they become smaller, and smaller and smaller and finaly go

That's my experience wishing that anyone take the same way.

 

[tommyp]

Wow looks like a tough critter to keep.

Thanks for all the help! Maybe I'll return mine. I bought one after reading about them at various sites but never turned up anything about their longevity issues or stupidity. I wish I posted here first. I did read about some one who had one for almost a year though and it was still doing fine.

I'll try to give this guy a fighting chance my overflows are screened off so I hope that should keep him out of there and there are no ph's in my tank. I have enough algae for him to eat right now. we'll see how he does.

thanks all
Tom

 

[ReefLady]

tommyp, be sure to check your overflow several times per day to make sure it's not trapped in there. I had to check my tank several times daily, and often would pull the slugs out more than once per day. And this was NOT a high-flow tank.

Pain in the butt? You betcha.

T