Nudibranch Breeding

[MAreefer]

Dear Anthony,

I recently set up a small scale Berghia breeding system and have had good success. I had a terrible Aiptasia problem and solved it and also sold/traded some to local reefers and friends. I am still contemplating keeping the tank going and raising them for money but first I need to solve my other problem.... Flatworms! I had such good luck with Beghia I would like to do the same thing with the Flatworm Eating Nudibranches. I have been talking about it and I have around a 20 person waiting list if I am succesful but I need to know if my berghia set up is going to be able to house velvet nudibranches.

My set-up is simaler to what was outlined in this article,

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-01/ac/feature/index.php

I dont see why it would be any different other then I feed flatworms instead of aiptasia. I do have a few questions though ...

- Do velevet nudibranches breed like Berghia? Could you point out the differences?

- Any ideas on how to supply a constant source of flatworms?

- Any idea how many flatworms a single nudibranch eats in a day? The hardest part of berghai breeding was supplying aiptasia so I would like to get an idea of how hard it will be to have a constant supply of flatworms.

Hopefully you will be able to help me and anyone else reading this feel free to leave some input. If anyone has some links or kniw people with experience breeding velvet nudibranches it would be appreciated if you posted.

Thanks,
Tom

 

[MAreefer]

Nobody wants to help me out?

 

[rhidien]

Do you currently have any Berghia for sale? Where are you located. I hate having to ship, so if you're local I'd love to buy a few off you. What's your price per nudi? I'm in Seattle.

 

[rhidien]

As for a constant supply of flat worms.. other than recomending you to a couple of stores I can think of! hehe... guess just setting up a second tank or two to let them breed is all I can think of

 

[RedEyeReef]

Here's a bump, where can I get Flatworm eating Nud's?

 

[NaH2O]

Tagging along for the info from Anthony....

RedEyeReef - Marine Depot Live, but they are sold out; Liveaquaria, but it appears they are out right now, too.

 

[matts125]

To have a constant supply of flat worms you would have to set up yet another breeding tank for the flat worms by this I mean a tank set up with no predators to them. flat worms spread like crazy! so then you could just siphon them out with some airline tube and put them in the nudi tank. this would work I think just depends on how far you want to get into this, you might have to put more into it then it is worth...


Matt

 

[Anthony Calfo]

yep... as Matt states - you need to long establish your feed cultures before you even think of bringing in parent stock. But no... I really don't know of a way to reliably culture flatworms. Moreover, you may need to first research if the velvet nudis have direct development of larvae or fast settlement at least. Without that, you will not be breeding them any time soon. Do check the chaps at the sea slug forum and their archives. I also have some extensive opisthobranch resources listed int he back of my Reef Inverts book (2003)

I wish I knew more about this subject for you, but I gather that few folks have spent much time on this species to date.

 

[redsonja]

I just clicked the above link to liveaquaria.com's site and they appear to have the blue velvet sea slug in stock now.

HOWEVER...

Please, don't buy them.

I too considered culturing these gorgeous sea slugs. I learned of them trying to figure out how to rid our display tank of flatworms and read quite a bit about them. I read the most about them at seaslugforum.net and that squelched any further thoughts of raising them. I think your answers are in this post:

http://www.seaslugforum.net/display.cfm?id=9629

In summary, they have veliger larvae with slow settlement. After all I read on the seaslugforum, I will not even buy them to eat flatworms in my tank. The recommendation is to leave them in the oceans as they do not seem to have a large population. They also ship very poorly.

*off soapbox now*

-Sonja

 

[Anthony Calfo]

very well said, Sonja Thanks for your perspective.