Can a slug poison a tank?

knowthemath

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Feb 16, 2004
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A friend just lost all his fish in 24 hours. His levels were all testing normal and couldn't figure out what went wrong.

His inverts and corals seem to be fine, and his anemone is actually looking better. As we were talking, he mentioned also losing his sea slug which happened to be the first one to die.

The million dollar question is this.......could the slug have release a toxin? I know somewhere I read that a sea cucumber could. Info about slugs seems pretty limited. Anyone have any opinions???
 
What kind of slug? The simple answer is "I don't know." Sea hares can nuke a tank by inking, and some dorids are full of toxins.
 
Sorry, he couldn't remember the name....he thought it was something like marchino (as in the cherry), but I couldn't find any under that name.

What I did read wasn't very promising. Seems sea slugs have a short life in an aquarium.:(
 
I have to agree with morg on this one it depends on the slug. I have had one for about two years," I think that he's really a sea hare but I'm not exactly sure which." It's been harmless to anything in my tank that's not a green algae. Some of it's cousins can be very toxic though it just depends. What I've always gone by with these guys is brighter colors and no fear + poison. The ones that eat sponges etc .. can be very toxic. I'm sorry this is really too long of a reply to say maybe.
hth
chris :shake:
 
Most nudibranches (sea slugs) will eat one type of thing and will ONLY eat that one type of thing, most of the time its rare sponge types that you can only find on a ocean reef, and since they only eat that one thing they often die of starvation in captivity.
 
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