slug??? good or bad???

[opivyfan1313]

im trying to ask less questions...i swear

but i found this in my tank today, and I sure didn't put it there!

some type of slug?? is it harmful? the only other info I can give is that on the piece of live rock i found it on, was a small white circle sac that kinda looked fuzzy

i freaked out and immediately moved this to my QT, but is this thing safe?

thanks for you help in advance!

[opivyfan1313]

as a matter of fact, that blurry white spot on the branch to the right of the slug in question IS that white sac.....

[Grins]

I can't tell by the photos posted. Too dark, sorry. Try doing a google image search for stomatella varia and see if it looks like one of those.

[opivyfan1313]

I can't tell by the photos posted. Too dark, sorry. Try doing a google image search for stomatella varia and see if it looks like one of those.

there was a picture labeled "stomatella" that looks exactly like it!

but my question is...what's that white sac then???

all the info on the stomatella say they release sperm and egg all at once, nothing about an egg sac (which is what I'm ASSUMING that is)...

[BeelzeBob]

yea, if its like a "snail in a half shell" Grins is right on w/ stomatella.

the white thing looks like one of those harmless spongey bi-valveish things of which the name escapes me.

[Grins]

I'm thinking it was just hiding near it...and if the "cocoon" like sac looks like this it is a scypha sponge. Both the stomatella and scypha are harmless. And trust me, you'll see more stomatellas eventually..lots. Be thankful, you have yourself a free clean up crew member.

http://www.melevsreef.com/id/scypha.jpg

[BeelzeBob]

yea those.

man grins. youre just a plethora of good information. lady reefers are so thorough.

i have hundreds of those in my skilter. ugly lil studs.

[Grins]

I liked them at first....they were a pretty cottony white but now they are the color of those ooky chicken liver sponges that is often found on live rock.

[Fishieness]

I liked them at first....they were a pretty cottony white but now they are the color of those ooky chicken liver sponges that is often found on live rock.
ONE of the advantages to super high flow :)
i've always had lots of those, but only when you turned over rock and on the back glass. was too much flow for them to survive in the open :)

[Grins]

You're right, I don't get them where they are visible in the display tank these days, not unless I change rock...which is too often. But they are in the overflow box. and a few in the sump

[gomrjoe]

If that is a stomatella, it looks like a snail that got stepped on and its shell never really formed, they are bad news, at least IME. The outer top part of the slug is hard, they are very difficult to pry off of your rocks. They move around the rocks and if they happen upon an encrusting type coral like GSP, they will eat it, and they reproduce pretty quickly. At one point I had about 8 or 9 of the little buggers roaming around my tank. I watched my GSP colony dwindle. It took me about a month to figure out that it was these guys that were eating my GSP.

If you can get a better pic and post it so that we can help ID it for certain, please do. If the ID matches what I just described, I would seriously consider getting rid of them. You can pry them off with a skewer and a net. Warning though, they can actually take smaller rocks with them, they stick on that good!

Good luck.

[Grins]

I have a ton of stomatellas in my tank Joe and I love them. They are great members of the clean up crew and I've not had them eating any corals. I don't have GSPs but you're the first person I've come across that has not enjoyed them in their tank.

[gomrjoe]

Perhaps I am confused then, which is always possible. The little buggers I am refering to have a hard "shell type" exoskeleton, colored very similarly to a regular snail shell, they are relatively flat (compared to a regular shell), and have a definitive point, looking like a volcano almost in the center of the shell or exoskeleton, whatever you wish to call it. They look like a snail that got stepped on. The slug actually lives under the hard exoskeleton and they roam around the rocks and definitely eat GSP.

I have heard them called Limpits before, but the limpits tend to be softer on top, and are tan, yellow, or orange usually. I know I still have one of these buggers left in my tank, he is tiny and I don't see him that often, next time he surfaces I will try and get a pic.

My latin is not that good when it comes to the snails and such, only corals and fish.

Sorry if I confused anyone.

[Fishieness]

limpets and stomatellas are completly different species. However, both are safe with corals. I would hypothesize that your GSP were dwindling for another reason, which can often happen with them.

[gomrjoe]

Thanks fishie, I do know they are different, from the description I was reading I got confused, once I looked up stomatella (after my post) I realized I goofed.

Anyways, I know Limpets are supposed to be safe, that is why I did not remove them right away after discovering them, but then I found a couple camped out on my GSP rock, and caught them in the act one night after the lights turned off. They had clearly eaten it, because the area they were on did not open the next day, and 48 hours later the stalks were gone and so was the encrusting growth from that same area! I cannot say if it was an opportunistic moment or not, but there was definitely a noticable section that they ate or otherwise killed off, I will phrase it that way. Finally, I moved my colony to a bucket and pried all of them off, 7 in total on the same rock with my GSP. Ever since, my GSP has bounced back nicely, exploded really.

Here is a pic I grabbed off the web, this is what the ones I caught looked like. All I know, is that from my individual experience it happened to me, whether I am an isolated case or not, who knows, perhaps maybe. Hopefully it doesn't happen to anyone else.