Nudibranches & community fish

[justinl]

unfortunately, I can almost guarantee that that thing will be dead in a short amount of time, regardless of where you put it. Nudibranchs are often very highly specialized predators and many feed on single species of prey. hydroids, cnidarians, sponges and bryozoans for the most part. There are a couple that *could* survive in captivity... a guy on RC had success, but it was a) ugly as sin as far as nudibranchs go, b) required the kind of tank that nudis all need (all intakes covered in sponge or something, very carefully selected cohabitants... which would definitely exclude puffers and mantids) and most importantly of all c) food. The species the guy chose was one that he knew ate a certain species of abundant sponge that he could easily collect from his doorstep by snorkeling. so if you're willing to jump through flaming hoops of TNT and wrestle a bear, you may be the kind of person who is fit to care for a nudibranch long term! long story sort, if it were me, I would just kill it now and keep it from killing your tank.

of course, then there's the always lovable zoo and monti eating aeolids which would be relatively easy (but very expensive) to keep... if you're into that kind of thing.

I agree. fascinating and mostly gorgeous animals, but really should be left where we found them: in the ocean.