Damaged Lettuce "nudibranch" Sea Slug

[theGil]

This little guy/girl (we like to think it's a female) has been with us for about a month. She's always moving around and laying egg "crop circles" (more than I'd like to have to look at and have to avoid with the magnet cleaner). Today, we noticed that she's missing a piece of her "lettuce". She's in a 12g Edge with another Lettuce Sea Slug, two Nassarius snails, a Duncan coral, and a Mushroom coral. The AC20 has had a pre-filter sponge since the day we got her (after she got partially pulled into the intake :/ That was a month ago and her lettuce looked fine after that traumatic event. Any idea what happened to her?

 

[remy443]

Looks like she finally shed the damage that was caused by the intake. Necrosis can sometimes take a long time before coming evident.

[x3thelast]

this has happened to mine many times. it just grows back. i try to catch em when they get a bit too close to the intake and power heads.

[theGil]

Looks like she finally shed the damage that was caused by the intake. Necrosis can sometimes take a long time before coming evident.

 

Well, that must explain it, then. It's just crazy that we never noticed ANY damage after the incident.

 

this has happened to mine many times. it just grows back. i try to catch em when they get a bit too close to the intake and power heads.

 

Oh man, that would never work for me. She's always moving all over the place, and she does it quickly. We had just added her to the tank, and when we returned that night, she was fighting for her life! She spent that night in a bag with some sand (suspended in the tank), and the next morning, I rushed to Petsmart to get a Fluval pre-filter sponge for my AC20. So worth the $3!

[GokesReef]

You can get foam to go over your intakes and powerheads. This is almost always recommended before adding a free-swimming creature, like a slug or nudi.

[x3thelast]

Mine learned its lesson. Don't go near the maxi mini and stay away from the intake and power head. Lol. Mines been hanging around on the back of a snail lately.

[theGil]

She passed away Since my last post, she continued to lose more and more of her body mass and eventually died. I really doubt it was a delayed reaction to the intake incident, though, because she was so mobile, healthy-looking, and egg-laying for a month after. Then all of a sudden she went downhill. After researching more, I'm wondering if she didn't have enough food to eat :/ Now I'm concerned about the fate of my seemingly-healthy remaining lettuce sea slug. He was added two weeks after the now-deceased one.

 

You can get foam to go over your intakes and powerheads. This is almost always recommended before adding a free-swimming creature, like a slug or nudi.

 

Yeah, that's what I did the very next day (see my above response). Regarding foam covers on powerheads, I JUST asked a Q about that. What do you use? Did you make one yourself? I'm installing a Koralia powerhead tomorrow.

 

Mine learned its lesson. Don't go near the maxi mini and stay away from the intake and power head. Lol. Mines been hanging around on the back of a snail lately.

 

Eh, I don't want my remaining lettuce sea slug to have to learn a lesson. I'll prevent it, if I can.

[GokesReef]

Yeah they're pretty voracious and had a very specialized diet.. if your algae's been all cleaned up, might want to take it back and trade for a handful of cerith snails, they're more of a maintenance crew.

[smiz]

I noticed a similar occurrence with my sea slug. Its health went seemingly downhill while the rest of the slugs remained very healthy looking. After seeing a continual decrease in health I traded it back in to the pet store. Two weeks after I traded it in I noticed dozens of baby sea slugs, which have now been alive for almost three months and very healthy. So my thought was maybe it has something to do with egg laying? Also I read that the slugs eat microscopic algae that grows all over, so even it appears there is nothing for them to eat they are in fact being fed. On a side note I also heard they only eat the top of algae and not the root so that it grows back and keeps food available.