Who has had lettuce nudibranchs?

[StirCrazy]

I have a weird pink/red fluffy hair algae and I am looking for somthing to eat it, so I am wondering what kinds of algae people have seen lettuce nudibranchs eat.

Steve

[MitchM]

I had a couple of those nudi's. They ate my bryopsis and derbesia. (green hair algae)
You don't have a fish that'll eat it?

Mitch

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Carpentersreef

I had a couple of those nudi's. They ate my bryopsis and derbesia. (green hair algae)
You don't have a fish that'll eat it?

Mitch

no both my yellow tang and my foxface seam to be defective...

Steve

[MitchM]

Foxface too?
Man, my foxface is all over anything even resembling a slowmoving macro algae......including some corals even....

Mitch

[Delphinus]

On two separate occasions I tried the lettuce seaslugs (apparently they're not true "nudibranchs" .. I have no idea what the difference is, though). Unfortunately both times they just slowly got smaller and eventually disappeared. I think the longest one lasted maybe two months. I had since heard (from word of mouth) that this is not an uncommon experience with them, so I figured I'd never try that again. But now I hear of another guy who's had them for well over a year and actually had them multiply?? So I don't know what to believe.

Does anyone have any good idea what is a "normal" lifespan of these guys and has anyone else heard of them multiplying in their tanks?

[Nemain]

I had mine for about 6 months, seemed to be very happy, and did not shrink at all. He fell victim to my emerald crab last week =( I guess they have an affinity for them o_O

I did make sure to always have a handful of macro in the tank for it to munch on =)

[Delphinus]

What kind of macro? I didn't realize they had an interest in macro's.

But in my case I had hair, bryopsis (the reason I wanted to try them in the first place), and other fuzzy algaes, so I don't -think- it was lack of food in my case.

Do you have just the one, or do you have more?

[Nemain]

I *had* two of them. They seemed to really enjoy grazing on the calupera, couldn't care less for the spaghetti. The little guy disappeared, and a week later I caught my emerald red handed =( I am sure that was the fate of my little guy as well. truly beautiful creatures. They could graze right on my feather dusters and they wouldn't hide in their tubes. Fantastic.

[Quinn]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

...apparently they're not true "nudibranchs" .. I have no idea what the difference is, though...

Correct, they are a sea slug. There's an article on the difference at http://www.seaslugforum.net.

[Diomedes]

Nudibranchs are also "sea slugs" or Opisthobranchs, they are just a different order of sea slugs than an order called Sacoglossa which your typical Elysia "lettuce nudibranch" belongs to...
But I highly doubt these Sacoglossans will eat your red tuft algae -
(Wrangelia argus perhaps?) because sea slugs are notoriously narrow minded food wise, often specifically matched for one and only one prey/resource.

I don't know about tropical ones, but most local sea slugs live 1-2 years according to my studies (2 years ago)...

If you love Sea Slug Pics, a neat site to check out is the "Nudi of the week" - http://slugsite.us/bow/nudiwkps/nudiwk24.html

Stephen