lettuce nudibranch feeding

jencheung

AC Members
Jan 22, 2007
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Cambridge, MA
I have a lettuce nudibranch (sold as Elysia crispata but I'm thinking it's probably Elysia clarki). He's done a great job eating the hair algae I had from the end of my cycle but I'm afraid that he's going to be hungry now that it's almost all gone. I know that they incorporate chlorophyll from the algae into their skin and are photosynthetic to some degree, but seeing how much algae he's been eating I'm afraid that he's hungry now that there's hardly any available. I've heard that they'll sometimes eat Chaeto but I don't have a refugium (I've got a NanoCube) and would be reluctant to introduce most of the commonly available macroalgae to my display tank for fear of them "going sexual". I was thinking of getting some maiden's hair (Chlorodsmis) since it grows on rock and doesn't have the reproduction problem (think sea grass) but I don't know if he'll eat it. Does any one feed their lettuce nudis? Thanks!
 
Cheato isnt the one you have to worry about going asexual as much as something like calurpa. But I've seen some eat algae sheets if you just attach them to a rock with a rubber band. But not all. Your best bet if you cant find anything that it would eat would be to find someone else with a hair algae problem.
 
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