What do you feed your nudibranch?
- Thread starter myrcies
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littlefoxx
10K Club member
What kind of nudi? Theres a ton lol
LovinlifeinGuam
5000 Club Member
That would depend on the species you have...sorry if you bought one of the many that will eat nothing except a single species of sponge...
Nudibranches are carnivorous and specialists. Some only eat zoas, some only eat aiptasia, some only eat montipora, some only eat particular species of soft coral, some only eat particular kinds of sponges, some only eat particular tunicates, some eat flatworms, etc.
Did you buy a random one in the store because it looked nice and the store people told you it'd be fine?
LovinlifeinGuam
5000 Club Member
This is what I suspect happened...hopefully not though...
myrcies
Community Member
My mistake, I am looking into purchasing one of the Blue Velvet Nudibranchs from LiveAquaria.
Are there any other places that sell nudibranchs? I believe LiveAquaria only sells the one species.
Thank you so much for any help/advice!
LovinlifeinGuam
5000 Club Member
Why not find out which species are even able to be maintained in aquariums due to their diet and then look for that species...plenty of places sell nudibranchs...most species starve quickly. Find out what species your looking for first.
myrcies
Community Member
Hello LovinlifeinGuam,
Yes! I am trying to figure out how to take care of nudibranchs in aquariums.
I saw that Blue Velvet Nudibranchs are sold by LiveAquaria and assumed they were suitable for aquariums.
Are they not able to be kept in home aquariums?
If you have any good resources or care guides for nudibranchs—please do let me know.
I am confident in my ability to keep stable parameters and ensure they have enough space—but am immensely weary that they may run out of food.
If anyone here keeps Blue Velvet Nudibranchs—please do let me know! I would be interested to hear how you keep them well fed.
—Best
LovinlifeinGuam
5000 Club Member
You should screenshot the picture and find out what species they're referring to as a blue velvet nudibranch. From there you can look for its diet. Very few species can be kept. There's a popular species that eats algae but it's nit the prettiest and another that eats aiptasia...when they eat all the aiptasia they'll starve though.
If you are serious about this then A) make sure you can identify the actual species and don't get sold a lookalike, B) verify that they do in fact eat the thing you think they eat, C) start breeding the thing they eat yourself in significant quantities, don't rely on buying it D) once your food breeding program is successful, get multiple nudibranches, not just one, so they can breed E) still fail a couple times until you figure out how to get them to breed.
It's not exactly an easy to keep animal, you need to be really committed to this if you want it to work
It's not exactly an easy to keep animal, you need to be really committed to this if you want it to work
LovinlifeinGuam
5000 Club Member
I couldn't agree more with this!
littlefoxx
10K Club member
These are really not kept in aquariums or are suitable for one. There are creatures that places sell for the hobby that just shouldnt be in the trade. Nudis in my opinion are one of them
I'm late here, but yeah, while nudibranchs are amazing critters, they - and some other sea slugs, like the inaccurately named Blue Velvet Nudibranch (which is actually a headshield slug, Cheilodonura varians) - are not suitable for aquariums at this point in time due to their incredibly restricted diets (with some species eating literally just one species of prey, and most only eating a handful). If the species you offer them isn't right, there is a very good chance they won't eat it, and will just end up starving.
Pretty much all nudibranchs starve in our tanks (exceptions for Berghia nudibranchs, which eat "pest" anemones and are usually promptly given to another hobbyist when they finish eating all available nems in a tank) - they really shouldn't be sold to anyone except researchers at this point.
That said, if you really want to keep a Blue Velvet Slug, I would find a bunch of hobbyists with Ghost Flatworms and buy the flatworms from them to culture in "farm" tanks, and I would ensure you can get a steady, large population of those (keeping track to the best of your abilities of things like how fast they reproduce, about how many larvae are produced and survive each time, etc.) - then I would buy one Blue Velvet and offer it one flatworm at a time until it reaches satiation and stops eating each day for at least three days (I'd probably suggest doing so for at least a week); that would give you a ballpark estimate for how many flatworms it would need daily. Once you know your farm's flatworm production capabilities and approximately how many flatworms are needed daily to support one adult Blue Velvet Slug, then you can figure out how many (if any) you can responsibly keep and feed at one time.
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