Help Id'ing Slug

[lewiss]

Hey,

To my shock I came home last night at 3am and turned on my bedroom light (where my tank is) and saw some slug type things in my tank.. And they were pretty beasty.

Never seen them before. Turned on my tank lights to get a good view and took some photo's! Soo..

Here they are:

They are brownish colour, with a black bulge on their back, red anteni. As soon as the lights went on they moved to the rock and disappeared, definitely wasn't a fan of the light!! there were 2, one about 1inche and the other about 1/2 an inch.

So cool that a year on an I'm still finding new things!! Lol

 

[bae1994]

Some kind of nudibranch some are fine some eat coral just keep an eye out

 

[guidedbyechoes]

Make sure not to squish it with your hands.

 

[lewiss]

sorry about the dirt glass by the way!!

Well they must have been in there ages and no unexplained coral death yet!!

Looking for a specific species though (come on Donya!!)

 

[bae1994]

On second thoughts it looks like a

Stomatella

Probably a stomatella varia

 

[seffieuk]

Stomatella

Seconded - Stomatella, good guys (most of them)

Seffie x

 

[lewiss]

Stomatella

Seconded - Stomatella, good guys (most of them)

Seffie x

Ahh thanks guys! hmm, strange how i've never seen them before though and havent seen them since! I read they eat algae but there's no much info on them that i can find.

 

[seffieuk]

Ahh thanks guys! hmm, strange how i've never seen them before though and havent seen them since! I read they eat algae but there's no much info on them that i can find.

I'm sure Donya will be able to furnish us with some - I only ever see mine at night as well, so assume they are nocturnal, probably to avoid predation, lets see what our Donya has to say

Seffie x

 

[Donya]

I'm sure Donya will be able to furnish us with some - I only ever see mine at night as well, so assume they are nocturnal, probably to avoid predation, lets see what our Donya has to say

Uummmmm....they are delicious and nutritious snacks for Calcinus hermits?

I've never read much beyond very basic info on Stomatellids and haven't ever had noticeable populations of them (for obvious reasons as above) so my info is limited on these snails and their behavior. About all I can say off the top of my head is that they're a great animal to have if they survive predation, and you may even get lucky and have them breed as they're one of few grazing gastropods that seem to breed readily in good conditions. Also, don't poke at them too much - they can get stressed and drop the back half of their foot like some reptiles do with their tails.