Purple Nudibranch

[TBLightningFan]

Has anyone ever had a Purple Nudibranch before. I decided to get one today. The LFS said it is omnivorous. They made sure i had purple coraline algae before I could have it. I guess thats the plant item it will prefer the most.

My question is how do you get a meaty item to this thing? Do you just find something that sinks or what?

 

[blout]

I read they are realy hard to care for.
from what i have been reading about the nudibranch most of them die from starvation with in cuple of month.
most people realy don't know what they eat.

 

[Great Lakes]

There a many variations of the purple nudibranch, but one thing they all have in common is their short lives in the home aquarium.

In the wild, their primary food source are sponges. So I have to be the bearer of bad news and say "enjoy him while you can".

GL

 

[Navarre]

Nudibranches are a real NO NO for aquariums in all but 99.99% of cases )

Shops find them easy to seel for their stunning and beautiful colours. Doesnt need alot of sales talk and hey presto another is sold

What they should have told you is that Nudibranches have evolved into a very very specialised group of creatures. Each species has developed to eat only 1 thing! Some nudibranches will eat only 1 species of pulsing xeia for example. others will eat only 1 speices of sponge. the same apples for almost all of them, be it corals, sponges or livefood, they all eat just 1 dietary food that is specialised to their species. This is why nudibvranches often look like the food they actually hunt/eat.

Being purple i guess its possible that this will only eat colraline algae (though i dont know of any that do eat this) but its more likely as GL said that it eats purple sponges. This means it will ignore any food you place beforeit and will only eat that type of food. The first thing you must do (if you intend to keep it) is find out the exact species of Nudi you have (there are 1000s ) then and only then can you provide the correct dietary needs for it.

Good luck with it. I have somewhere a link to a photolist of all known nudis. Ifi can find it then i will post it here.

 

[Aquascaper]

My experience of Nudibranches:

1) Got one
2) Looked fine
3) 7 weeks later died
4) Killed off all my sps corals and snails + my starfish

My advice, not worth the hassle. If these guy die in your tank they release all sorts of nasty stuff so best to fish them out at the smallest sign of deterioration.

HTH.

 

[Opcn]

Nudibranches are a real NO NO for aquariums in all but 99.99% of cases

all but 99.99%=00.01%

Nudibranches are a real NO NO for aquariums in [00.01]% of cases

don't do it, there are more then one species of purple coraline algea and the large nudis are full of poisons.