Notodoris Minor

[Lozza]

Saw one of these in LFS and was wondering if it is alright in my tank as I no longer trust what they say as they pretty much say everything is ok in my tank. Will it affect the coral?

Also one LFS says I should be adding iodine for my anemone and the other LFS says I should 'marinade' some brine shrimp in vitamin B for it twice a week - suggestions??

Lozza

[charlie]

This is what I found on your nudibranch:
The Sea Slug Forum - Notodoris minor

What type of anenome do you have? I feed my RBTA frozen krill. I know Gene here will feed silversides. HTH

[Lozza]

I have a bubble tip anemone. HTH??

Lozza

[charlie]

Do a search on feeding bubble tips on here if you have more questions, there is a ton of info on here about that.

[TimH07]

My GBTA happily accepts silversides, i cut them in half inch pieces though, i tried a half once and he just dropped it.

[Poseidon]

As for the slug....

N. minor feeds on calcareous sponges belonging to the family Leucettidae.

That makes it a BAD choice for the aquarium. No way you can provide it with food for very long.

[zhenya]

Lozza,

Forget the brine shrimp as food for anemones. It has very little in terms of nutritional value for the animal. To feed your Entacmaea quadricolor try experimenting with shrimp, silversides or krill. There is no one proven formula that all of this type anemones will accept the same food. You realize that these are pretty stationary animals and eat whatever is available "locally". So, experimenting with a few different meaty type foods is the best way to find the right food for your bubble tip.
I always fed mine silversides and they grew huge and divided many times, and eventually took over my 110g tank.

PS. Nudibranchs are all carnivorous animals and for the most part extremely specialized in their prey. It is just unrealistic to think that one can provide the same food in acceptable quantity for a long term in aquarium. So, having said that, I think your LFS may be giving you a wrong/bad advice.

[cdearing]

I purchased a nudibranch from my LFS. He sold them like hotcakes and told me that it would do fine in my tank. I tried finding optional foods for it but had no luck. The LFS said other people with hair algae in their tanks had good luck with them. I had no hair algae and in hindsight, should have taken it back to the LFS but instead learned the hard way (as a newbie) that I should have never purchased that poor guy because he starved to death in my tank. You do not want that to happen in your tank. Trust me!

[Ninong]

I purchased a nudibranch from my LFS. He sold them like hotcakes and told me that it would do fine in my tank. I tried finding optional foods for it but had no luck. The LFS said other people with hair algae in their tanks had good luck with them.

No nudibranchs eat algae. None at all. Zero! Zip! Nada! All nudibranchs are carnivores. The LFS people should know this but they couldn't care less as long as they sell you whatever they have to sell. It's a shame. Some of them deliberately mislead people but most of them really just make up stuff on the fly. The majority of them have no idea what they're talking about, especially the ones who are just passing through. It's not exactly a high-paying job.

I have questioned some newbie LFS employees about where they got some of the absurd statements they were passing on to unsuspecting customers and invariably it was what they were told to say by the owner. Not all LFS owners are that way but a significant number certainly are and it's discouraging.

Just look at some of minimum tank size recommendations on some of the large online vendors' websites if you want to see just how pathetic this advice can be. Or look at the animals they are offering for sale. Is it any wonder that the industry comes in for criticism.

[charlie]

The particular LFS cdearing is referring has copper in 3 of their salt tanks, and the owner persists in putting inverts in them. Undergravel filters and no skimmers are the norm. He is not out to sell folks the best product, he is just out to SELL. People wonder why an animal that they purchase there dies within a few days.........................
This of course is the store that I can't go into for some reason or another.

[Ninong]

Saw one of these in LFS and was wondering if it is alright in my tank as I no longer trust what they say as they pretty much say everything is ok in my tank. Will it affect the coral?

It won't survive in your tank because it's extremely unlikely that your tank will contain the specific prey that the nudibranch requires to survive. All nudibranchs are carnivores and most are highly specialized when it comes to prey.

This particular nudibranch feeds on a certain family of sponges. I believe all dorids are sponge-eaters. Sponges contain toxins. The nudibranch will then acquire these toxins from their prey. If the nudibranch dies in your tank, these toxins will be released. Whether that is a problem or not depends on a lot of things. In most cases it's not a serious problem but there are some nudibranchs that could definitely cause problems.

N. minor feeds on calcareous sponges belonging to the family Leucettidae. On the Great Barrier Reef it has been found feeding on the calcareous sponge Pericharax heterographis and Gosliner et al. (1996) have recorded it eating Leucetta primigenia elsewhere in the Indo-West Pacific. It is often found on coral substrates, but its distribution is dependent on the presence of its food sponges. It has been found from 3 to 24 m in depth.

Even if your tank actually had the exact prey that a certain nudibranch requires to survive, their natural lifespan is really very short, ranging from 12 to 18 months in most cases. And you have no way of knowing if the nudibranch the LFS is selling is 4 months old or 14 months old.

The only reason they are offered for sale is because they are extremely easy to collect (you just pick them up) and they are colorful, so they are an easy sale to uninformed customers who may not realize yet that most LFS employees will say anything to sell stuff. Anything at all.

Stay away from all nudibranchs. They shouldn't even be collected.

Also one LFS says I should be adding iodine for my anemone and the other LFS says I should 'marinade' some brine shrimp in vitamin B for it twice a week - suggestions??

Lozza

You shouldn't add iodine to your tank unless you know for certain that your tank is deficient in iodine. Natural seawater concentration of iodine is 0.06 ppm (all forms). There is no need to maintain iodine at levels above natural seawater concentration. The reason the LFS people tell you that you should be adding iodine is because that is what they have been instructed to say by their boss. Just take a look at all the additives and magic potions on the shelves at your LFS the next time you're there. Do you realize that you can't live without every single one of those? Yes, for a healthy reef aquarium, you will need to purchase at least one bottle of everything they have to sell.

Read this article by Dr. Ron Shimek on the care of anemones, especially Entacmaea quadricolor. For specific questions or advice, I refer you to our resident BTA expert, zhenya.

Zhenya bought a nice little BTA a few years back and put it in his 110-gal tank. He fed it regularly and made sure it was happy. One day zhenya was surprised to see that he was a daddy. His little BTA had split in two and now he had two BTAs. Zhenya was very proud! We all offered our congratulations. Way to go, zhenya!

It wasn't long before zhenya was a proud papa once again. He now had four BTAs. Oh, happy day. We were all very happy for zhenya. Within months, zhenya was the proud daddy to a dozen BTAs. He didn't bother to tell us about each new arrival because it was getting to be old news at that point.

At this point we have all lost track of how many BTAs zhenya has in his 110-gal tank. He has removed many of them over the past three or four years but they keep multiplying away.

Here is a photo of the BTA that ate zhenya's 110-gal tank:

So if you have any questions about what to feed your BTA or any questions about the minimum size tank for a BTA, zhenya is the guy to ask.

Good luck with your little BTA!



P.S. -- I'm surprised that LFS employees in Queensland are the same as LFS employees here. I would have thought that being so close to the GBR might make them a little more intelligent.

[Lozza]

Thanks for all the info guys, very much appreciated. I nearly bought the nudibranch while I was at LFS but am learning and thought I would ask on here first. Actually both of my LFS are run by the owners and as you have probably gathered both tell me different stuff.

So a couple of people have said to feed BTA silverside - do you mean cooked silverside?

Lozza

[Ninong]

So a couple of people have said to feed BTA silverside - do you mean cooked silverside?

Lozza

No, they don't mean cooked. Raw. Like this.

You can also feed small pieces of shrimp. Just regular shrimp from the supermarket. You don't even need to peel them. In fact, it's better if you don't peel them.

Nothing the anemone eats in the wild is cooked or peeled.

[zhenya]

HTH??

Lozza

HTH means-hope this helps.

[Lozza]

Shows how ignorant I am I thought you meant the silverside meat humans eat.

Lozza

[Lozza]

Zhenya will you are viewing I thought I would ask a couple of questions about my BTA (Ninong tells me you are the expert). Okay, when I first got my BTA I only had it under a bright house fixture double fluoro light with a plastic cover over tubes and it was always where you could see it and open, my clowns were even hosting it from pretty much the moment I put it in. I changed to a double T5 light and almost immediately it moved to the back of my tank and now only opens when the lights are off. It has planted itself vertically in some dead coral which makes it very difficult to ensure it is individually feed. Clowns no longer go near it they have moved onto the heliofungia (easier to get at). It really does appear to not like light??

Lozza

[weez1959]

Gene,
Do you still have all those nems? Maybe a new pic is in order!
Do you have to feed each one of those guys??

[TimH07]

Gene,
Do you still have all those nems? Maybe a new pic is in order!
Do you have to feed each one of those guys??

The way that tank looks im sure he can just throw a fist full of silversides in and let them sort it out

[Ninong]

Gene,
Do you still have all those nems? Maybe a new pic is in order!
Do you have to feed each one of those guys??

Yes, he still has them. Or they have him. After finishing off the 110-gal tank, they have taken over the room.

Here's a photo of them as they begin to sneak out of the tank:


Occasionally they will show a few bubble tips just to prove they know how to do it:


Wall-to-wall tentacles:


So many choices:


We're running out of live rock here:




Look! Bulb tips!

[zhenya]

Thanks for all the info guys, very much appreciated. I nearly bought the nudibranch while I was at LFS but am learning and thought I would ask on here first. Actually both of my LFS are run by the owners and as you have probably gathered both tell me different stuff.

So a couple of people have said to feed BTA silverside - do you mean cooked silverside?

Lozza

Lozza,

To be honest, I think the problem with upgrade to a different lighting arose because you didn't allow acclimation time for your anemone.
Any time we change, or even exchange old bulbs for new bulbs we make sure to allow some time for the animals to acclimate to different intensity of the light. Bulbs degrade over time, I mean month and month of use, intensity starts to fall off after about 5-6 month for metal halide bulbs. I would think fluorescents as well. You had regular output fluorescent bulb and went straight to a high output T5 bulbs. Those bulbs pack quite a punch...

Anyway, going from strong light to strong is not a problem but increase in intensity is what had caused your anemone to seek shelter. Give it some time and I think it will venture out again.

How long ago did you switch to your current lighting?