Sea Slugs

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

The Gillman

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Jan 1, 2005
Messages
50
Location
Peoria Illinois USA
Greetings. I would like some info on sea slugs.My LFS gets some awesome looking specimums every so often.Need to Know difficulty keeping,feeding,predators,etc.TIA
 
Sea slug can mean many things, there are several readily available varietys for the aquarium hobby. The Sea Hare, Cucumber and Nucibranch. All of the mentioned are reef save as a rule. However this does mean that they are fish safe. Regarding the Sea Hare and Cucumber, should they become stressed out or feel threatened they can release an "ink" that is invisible and very toxic to fish. This ink however is harmless to other inverts such as crabs shrimp and corals. Another thing to keep in mind is wether or not they are sand sifters. If they are be cautious. Sand sifters are notorious for over sifting sand and this leaves you with sterile sand. This is bad. They can be very rewarding and a joy to keep. One more thing regarding the Nudibranch. Most are best left for expert reef keepers and should not be kept unless you also use a refugium. They have very specific diets and can be nearly impossible to fee. The lettuce Nudibranch is the only species I know of that can be quite happy in' a well established reef system. If you are absolutely determined to keep one and do not have an attached refugium then you need to feed them cocopods. A very good brand is a product called Cyclopeeze. Your corals with love these cocopods too!!!
 
FISHISM said:
Regarding the Sea Hare and Cucumber, should they become stressed out or feel threatened they can release an "ink" that is invisible and very toxic to fish. This ink however is harmless to other inverts such as crabs shrimp and corals.
This is actually a hobbyest myth. They do indeed conatin toxins within their bodies but they do not have excresion glands to release them at will. Only when the animal dies and begins decompossing will these toxins be released.

Cheers
Steve
 
Back
Top Bottom