Lettuce Nudis....are they good for algae?

[quiksilver5768]

I was just wondering, how are lettuce nudis? They ae entirely reef safe right? And Are they like cucmbers??Meaning, that if they die, they lewt off some sort of toxin in the tank which will kill everything? Ive been trying to look up info on these guys but havent been too successful.

 

Also, are these lettuce nudi's really good with hair algae? Because, some people say that snails are good with hair algae and I have had no luck. I dont have too bad of a hair algae problem but Im trying to get it under control before it gets out of hand...And one last question, Is hair algae all that the lettuce nudi eats? Because what if the little guy depletes all my hair algae...does he sift on the substrate too? ANy comments would be helpfull...thanks.

[printerdown01]

There is a lot of debate on this little guy. I think a lot of people are afraid of him because he is a 'slug.' Let me start off by saying that I don't have one and never have. My reason: They survive on hair algae. The deal is the slug eats the hair algae, the chloroplasts are removed during digestion. The chloroplasts are then funneled into "pipes" in the ridges on the slug. They continue to capture light and produce, just as if they were in the algae. So essentially the slug is photosynthesizing. There is some arguments as to whether the slug actually uses the hair algae for nutrients or solely for its chloroplasts. I would suspect that it is probably a 2 fold thing. I would venture to guess that it extracts nutrients from the algae itself, AND uses the energy from the chloroplasts. This type of behavior is often seen in nudibranchs and sea slugs (the lettuce "nudi" is actually a slug and not a member of the nudibranchia tax. -Thank you someone on here for correcting me last time). Anyway, this behavior is often used to move nematocysts, color pigments, as well as toxins to the upper levels of nudis and slugs. Now, here is the deal... The lettuce nudi needs a constant supply of hair algae. Even though it store the chloroplasts and harvests their energy, it does not have the capability of sustaining them indefinitely... Eventually the chloroplasts begin to die and the slug has to find more. The good thing is that IF this slug dies in your tank it will not wipe everything out. In fact, as less and less food is available it begins to shrink. The less body mass, the less food it needs to consume to sustain itself. I do not own one, as I do not have enough hair algae in my tank to keep the little guy. I have a single tuff on my out put from my filter (and it couldn't reach it anyway). I don't know how good these guys really are at eating it, but it is all they will eat, apparently... I know they are capable of consuming it; I just don't know how much they consume. My guess is that they will grow larger and larger, when there is a large supply (consuming more), and then begin shrinking as consuming less when there is less available. A local fish store has had 2 die in their 7 gallon. The tank did not even react to the death... If you don't have enough hair, please don't buy one! If you have a refugium where you could put some extra in a 'high flow' area, you will discover that it will grow VERY quickly. You should be able to harvest it in small quantities, to provide an ample food supply -but this is just me speculating, as I stated before I have not kept one...

-Hope this lengthy post helps, Anthony

p.s. It should agree with your research, and I hope that it fills in some gaps... If you have any more specific questions feel free to ask either on the forum or in PM. I have a lot more to say about the topic if you are interested . Also they can range in color from green to almost sky blue -but the latter are almost impossible to find. Here are some of the color morphs:

 

[Crakeur]

I have one and yes, they do munch a lot of algae. I notice the nudi manages to find a thick area of algae and it latches onto the ends, swaying in the current with the algae (yeah, mine was that bad and that long). When the nudi moves away, the algae is all but gone. Pretty impressive really. Far better than any snail or crab that I have seen.

 

Mine has grown considerably in size but I think that is due to comfort in the tank more than the amount it has eaten. I still have a decent amount of algae to keep the nudi busy and when I run out, it moves to the fuge to take care of the hair on the glass there.

 

Once I'm out of algae, I will either find a reefer to pass it along to or bring it to a fish store and see if they have a need for one.

 

Mine is white with sky blue highligts and you can see a pic in the members tank section under my second to last thread.

[tgrupert]

when you run out I will be more than happy to take it man.

[TBone303]

I had one and it did not touch my hair algae. After two weeks it died and had no adverse effect on my tank. I was not to impressed with its preformance in my tank.

[flaunt]

i'm surprised ESPI hasn't chimed in here..

 

http://www.seaslugforum.net/elyscris.htm

 

btw there are sh*tloads of threads over on reefcentral.com about this topic.

[Dave ESPI]

flaunt has spoken

i'm surprised ESPI hasn't chimed in here..

 

http://www.seaslugforum.net/elyscris.htm

 

btw there are ######loads of threads over on reefcentral.com about this topic.

 

They have been mentioned here before recently.

I was merely staying out of a potentaly aggervating thread.

Printerdown answered better than I would have. no need to stomp in and add .02 cents to a thread that was already past pocket change.

'nuff said.

 

PS: they can be hit or miss. I have 3 now that dont eat a shred of algae.... at least not that I can see. Inepha has one (well HAD, it kicked the bucket yesterday we believe) It also didnt do crap.

 

ok, so a quick .10 cents, the first .02 were free.

[flaunt]

subtle, ESPI, how you UN-censored my post

[Inpha]

Yah... mine is MIA... I miss him... I really liked the guy. I think I crushed him... he was such a nice little fella. But he didn't touch any algae really (there isn't much hair in my tank anyhow). Anyhow... may he rest in peace (or pieces for that matter... actually more like scum... the thick white stuff I found on top of my tank yesterday... no side effects... everything looks better than normal actually... maybe sacrificing one of these guys to the reef gods will bring there favor to your tank... try it sometime )

[quiksilver5768]

Well thanks eveyrone for the help. I will check out the forums at reefcentral and see if I should get one or not. Seems like a 50/50 chance that it will eat the algae or not so, I'll think about it. Thanks again everyone, c ya

[Catspa]

Ok, relize this thread is dead, but i though i would pipe in, just incase it isn't.

Just got one today, about 2 hours ago, and he is gobling up the hair like you wouldn't believe!!! Seriously, can't believe this little guy. In one hour, he's cleared a patch of about .7"x.7" - Damn, finaly a solution for Hair aglea!! Think he must have been really hungry cause he didn't look good at the store (i'd watched him for about a week at the store), but now he looks great in my tank!

[quiksilver5768]

Thanks for the input. Im probably gonna end up getting one because I cant find any other way to stop this hair algae from taking over my tank. I will post some pics later on of my tank and how its doing with the hair algae if I end up gettin one of these guys.