Nudibranch!

Well, as I was gazing at my tank, I spotted a nudibranch the size of a small hair, maybe 1/4" in length. After looking at it for a while and searching rather quickly on the net, it appears to be a horned nudibranch. The ones online seem to be rather attractive in coloration, this one is kinda dull in color, pretty ugly little critter. Has four horns,two of them are whisker like horns and two sticking on top of his head. It also has things sticking out on his back, which some fell off when I pricked him off my polyp frag and isolated him. I am trying to get a good shot of him, but the camera took fuzzy pictures.

I took him out because I saw him take a nab at a polyp he was creeping up onto and the polyp closed up and he moved right along. Anyone have any info on these guys?? He appears to be brown with yellowy things on his back. Definetly a slug now that I took a good look of him isolated.

 

Try to see if he is the only one in the tank... Have you added any LR to your tank lately, or anything new for that matter...

Marc.

 

Well, I'm happy to say that I think I found my culprit after cruising the sea slug forum. He looks exactly like the one pictured here ->

http://www.seaslugforum.net/factsheet.cfm?base=phesmela

But, he's not black. He seems to have a brownish orange body with the things on his back being yellowish.

I added a Zoo frag a week ago and added a bubble anemone yesterday. Just saw him for the first time today. Good thing I nailed the sucker and isolated him.

Looks like a nudi of the family Phestilla.

 

I'm afraid to say that you might have a zooanthid eating nudibranch. What coral polyp was it taking a nab at when you took it out? See if this link helps:

http://www.seaslugforum.net/display.cfm?id=6316

 

Uh Oh, I think I have one of those in my office tank. Is that why some of my coral looks like it's been grazed on? Mine is all black, but has none of the "fingers" coming off it. I thought it was an algae eater. I saw him going after some green algae on the back of the tank and figured he was harmless. I'll see if I can get a picture.

 

I know, it sucks. I read somewhere too where those things on his back are egg sacks of some sort. He carries them on his back. And he didn't have a lot when I took him out, so I think the little bastard spawned in my tank. A few also fell in the bag I put him in.

I saw him cruising my orange zoo's and I thought he was just searching for algae on the rock, till I saw the little critter take a very noticeable bite at a polyp, luckily the polyp closed up rather quickly. The polyps took their time to come back out, it was obviously attacked. I read that he actually eats the Tubastrea corals, cup corals. Which I do have. :O

 

Ugh I am sorry to hear about that rickzter.
I am at the point of breaking my tank down for a serious cleaning and eventual restocking after a bout with what I believe was a case of monti-eating nudibranches that I probably picked up from a frag swap. THey destroyed my perfectly healthy monti cap in about 2 days and shredded my digis.

My efforts to find a way to eradicate them were not that fruitful. Perhaps someone will enlighten on this thread.

 

you can get rid of the monti nudis as well as the zoanthid eating nudis with a FW dip. The zo eating ones will take on the color of the polyp making them diffiicult to find. I am in a battle with them at the moment and I had a real big battle with them about a year ago. Rickzter yours sound like the zo kind-JMHO and happy reading

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=451720

 

geo thanks. I've heard about the dip, but that only gets the ones on the coral - not in the water column or elsewhere - do you know what their life cycle typically is? thanks though, this is a good start for when I get down to business.

 

I dont think you'll ever get rid of all of them. I was also reading up on the Asterina stars, which I also caught a day before the nudi. Eventhough they are known to graze algae and bacteria, they are known to plague a tank with spawns.

Well, the thing about the nudi I caught was that he did not take the color of the zoo's. He was very noticeably walking through it. He was a little difficult to see because he is so small. But not small enough that I couldn't take his ass out.

I'm keeping an eye out in my tank. I've been finding tons of stuff on my tank. Just yesterday, I found a baby starfish, might be a serpent, but because it was so small and fast!, I couldn't tell if it was a brittle either. I know it's either a brittle or serpent. It has a circular body, 5 long arms with tiny hairs on the arms.

With all these little creatures I've been finding, I'm contemplating dipping all my corals before placing them in my tank.