The Great Discovery

Tritoniopsis elegans,
originally uploaded by Hongyee.

I discovered a nudibranch (sea slug) in my tank yesterday! A piece of colt coral fell off the rock, and while I picked it up I discovered this fuzzy little "coral" at the colt's base. After a few seconds, the fuzzy white thing started moving - and I thoght it was a gigantic worm. *shivers*

It's amazing, isn't it? It was eating the colt coral, and apparently several other foreign reefers have had this same nudi on their colt corals too.

Now, I'm awfully excited about this discovery. Nudis are one of the most mysterious creatures in the sea, and most eat only very specific things. If they eat a sponge, they will only take that species and nothing else. They seem to have a preference of Sarcophyton leather corals and colt corals - the colt I can spare, it's cheap to buy them at $5 every 3 months just to keep these nudis, but I was afraid they'd take my other corals too.

As per the advice of yx, I separated the nudi and put it into my sump tank. Shall keep watch over it.

It's lovely to have such diversity in a little glass box.