what is this little thing?

[coryscritch]

hi guys. i found this tiny guy in my refugium just now. i sucked him up with a dropper, not sure what he is 

[coryscritch]

i think its a nudibranch. he's gone 

 

[MainelyReefer]

It is indeed a nudibranch

[coryscritch]

2 hours ago, GraniteReefer said:

It is indeed a nudibranch

I found another one too. Both in the refugium. 

[mndfreeze]

You might want to try to get a detailed up close macro sort of picture of it for better identification.  Generally nudis are bad news bears.  They are all specific feeders that eat only one thing and they usually mimic or camo with whatever they eat.  There is a species of nudi that predates on literally every coral and sponge we keep in home aquariums.  If you have one, chances are you have a lot more.   

 

I would start checking zoa colonies and montipora colonies.   The ONLY exception to keep would be berhgia, the aiptasia eating ones but you generally would know if you had those because you would have put them in your system on purpose.

[coryscritch]

1 hour ago, mndfreeze said:

You might want to try to get a detailed up close macro sort of picture of it for better identification.  Generally nudis are bad news bears.  They are all specific feeders that eat only one thing and they usually mimic or camo with whatever they eat.  There is a species of nudi that predates on literally every coral and sponge we keep in home aquariums.  If you have one, chances are you have a lot more.   

 

I would start checking zoa colonies and montipora colonies.   The ONLY exception to keep would be berhgia, the aiptasia eating ones but you generally would know if you had those because you would have put them in your system on purpose.

Thanks for the info. My coral load is very small at the moment. Just a couple of frags. I’ve checked them about 1000 times to see if I saw anything. I did find another one in my refugium. So I went through all my chaeto and didnt find anymore. I’ll wait a few weeks before I add the rest of my livestock. Thinking about grabbing a wrasse in the meantime 

[mndfreeze]

As far as I know there are no nudi's that eat chaeto.  Not saying there aren't but the blurry pic you had doesn't look anything like a nudi that eats algae of any sort.  The way it looks really reminds me of a zoa or montipora nudi.  Just because you have a light coral load and checked them doesn't mean they didn't come in as eggs that were on the frag to begin with or even from whereever you got your chaeto from.  When they run out of food they tend to wander the tank and often end up in plumbing, fuges, etc.  

 

I would be super diligent because you will need more then a few weeks of whatever it doesn't eat to be safe.

[mndfreeze]

This is what a berghia nudibranch looks like.  This is the aiptasia eating on and safe but will starve if you have no aiptasia to feed it.  They are commonly traded amongst local hobbyists once they clean their tanks out of all the aiptasia.

 

 

 

[mndfreeze]

Monitpora nudi

 

 

 

Zoa nudi

[coryscritch]

i know the picture sucks. it was the best one i got and i haven't found anymore to get a better I.D photo. i guess what ill do is put a media bag over the return spout of my finnex hob refugium.  the two i caught looked more like zoa nudi. ill just have to stay on the lookout for more.  thanks

[WV Reefer]

11 minutes ago, coryscritch said:

i know the picture sucks. it was the best one i got and i haven't found anymore to get a better I.D photo. i guess what ill do is put a media bag over the return spout of my finnex hob refugium.  the two i caught looked more like zoa nudi. ill just have to stay on the lookout for more.  thanks

A lot of times they will look like what they are eating. I had a gorgeous blue one that came in on my blue Sympodium. It was so pretty and then it slowly starved to death.   

 

 

 

 

[coryscritch]

Wow! It does look super cool. Bummer they’re no good 

[coryscritch]

I had a flat worm problem back in the day and this worked. So maybe if they’re only in the refugium this will work too. 

[WV Reefer]

2 minutes ago, coryscritch said:

Wow! It does look super cool. Bummer they’re no good 

I was so bummed but I couldn’t keep buying frags of Sympodium for it to eat. lol

 

i would just be vigilant and keep removing them by hand and looking for eggs. 

[mndfreeze]

Yeah when I first got into this hobby, being a weird creature lover, I wanted to find a way to get nudi's in my tank but the fact that they are specialized specific eaters pretty much ruled out ALL of them that look cool.  

 

I have used berghia for aiptasia before with mixed results but it was cool to see them slowly destroy them all and reproduce for a while, but they started to starve to death and die out then the aiptasia started to come back.  

 

I've also used the flatworm eating slug, the blue velvet slug, which was really cool.  He eventually got sucked into my powerhead though. boooo.

 

Some people have good results with the lettuce nudibranch and certain algae, 

[xthunt]

I seen blue velvet nudibranches at the store the other day and wanted one right then. One of the coolest things I seen in a while. Don’t have flatworms for it to eat though. 

[mndfreeze]

They are really cool and beautiful, but they starve very fast if you don't have a huge population of flatworms.  I had those tiny flatworms that are common algae eaters people get.  The little itty bitty reddish or greenish ones you'll find on your glass.  It ate those like crazy but normally they go for bigger flat worms then that.  Sort of similar to how people get harlequin shrimp for asterinas.  The shrimp eventually starve even with asterinas still in the tank.

[ihglifelol]

On 4/25/2018 at 1:53 AM, mndfreeze said:

As far as I know there are no nudi's that eat chaeto.  Not saying there aren't but the blurry pic you had doesn't look anything like a nudi that eats algae of any sort.  The way it looks really reminds me of a zoa or montipora nudi.  Just because you have a light coral load and checked them doesn't mean they didn't come in as eggs that were on the frag to begin with or even from whereever you got your chaeto from.  When they run out of food they tend to wander the tank and often end up in plumbing, fuges, etc.  

 

I would be super diligent because you will need more then a few weeks of whatever it doesn't eat to be safe.

actuly lutuce nudis eat chaeto

[mndfreeze]

Cool, mine never did.  They destroyed a ton of other algae for me and loved eating the ulva I had as well.  With how fast chaeto grows its possible I just never saw it or they prefer it less then other types.

[ihglifelol]

7 hours ago, mndfreeze said:

Cool, mine never did.  They destroyed a ton of other algae for me and loved eating the ulva I had as well.  With how fast chaeto grows its possible I just never saw it or they prefer it less then other types.

yes they would rather go for film algae as they are easyer to eat