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Do Bandensis eat Nudibranchs?

Joined
Feb 18, 2005
Messages
709
One challenge with keeping cephs have been with pest control. I have some aptasia in my tank that that I continually manually kill with kalk. However, this battle will never be won this way. Typically I would use peppermint shrimps to kill them, but obviously a shrimp wouldn't last more then a couple seconds after I introduce them to a tank with an army of cuttlefish.

My question is. Does anyone know if a Sepia Bandensis will eat a Berghia Nudibranch? These nudibranchs will eat aptasia, but they are pricey and would not want to just throw that money into a nice ceph meal.

I would guess that they wouldn't touch them, but does anyone know for sure?
 
I would say no way. They don't touch snails or stomatella, and I don't think berghia are even going to show up for them. Now, if the berghia will eat you aptasia is another question...



:biggrin2:
 
Jean-Im not terribly worried about the possible toxins, but maybe I have too much faith in my water volume+filtration systems.

Rich-Ive read a lot of mixed reports on thier success. Have you ever tried them? Maybe I should just wait until Im in between cuttle generations and get a hoard of peppermint shrimps or something.
 
Against my better judgement, I tried them once. No go.
They might work in your tank because none of your animals will eat them. However, even if they do work it will take months to years to see. Most that report success have the nudis in a separate tank and rotate aptasia covered rocks in and out of it.
Peps are hit and miss as well. When you are between generations, maybe I can catch out my copper banded butterfly for you to borrow - he ate them all in less than a month.
 
Considering I would have to pay over 100$ to get the recommended amount of Berghias into my tank and theres so little guarantee, Ill wait till im in between generations and try something then. I have had success in my old tank with peppermint shrimp. I think I added 10-15 in a 50 gallon tank. Wiped them all clean and was aptasia free for a couple years until I added some aptasia infested macro in to the sump on accident.

How well do fish traps work? Are copper banded butterfly's one of those fish that may or may not nip at corals?
 
You know, I had an algae problem (various sorts of algae) in my 19 gallon coral tank about a year ago, and I read up on and tried all sorts of supposed algae eaters. They were all a huge disappointment - not one functioned as promised. I did some reading and found that some ate algae only at certain periods of their lives, others would eat it only as a last resort, etc. So I am very skeptical when I read about a certain invert or fish that will rid me of anything. Maybe some will, but there are a lot of them that don't live up to their reputations.

Fortuntely, I solved the problem in other ways.

Nancy
 
shipposhack;112522 said:
Rich- Maybe you got a different, similar species than Bergia. If they don't eat aiptasia, why would so many people be using them?

They do eat aiptasia, however, they really don't seem to be good at eating aiptasia in a show tank. People have success setting up a separate tank with bergia to rotate aiptasia infested rocks. This method take a long time and is very labor intensive.
People do all kinds of things that don't work (purple up, marc weiss products, many ich treatments, cycle, many additives, the EcoAqualizer) because they hope it will work - hoping and buying is easier than doing the actual work needed to deal with a problem. :biggrin2:
People also seem to love the idea of biological controls even though most of the reports about their effectiveness are negative.
 
Also, as far as i know cuttles can be fairly curious. :lol: "Curiosity killed the cuttlefish" :lol: If the cuttlefish got curious and say, poked at the naudi for fun, the naudi could expel those toxins theyve got and kill the whole tank. I guess it would depend on the individual cuttles personality but they're intelligent creatures and like to investigate their surroundings.
 

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