Mystery Slug Please Help ID

[Heathcliff37]

I an addition to my mystery coral I posted about in another thread, I also have super cool algae eating mystery slugs!

Both of them are amazing algae eaters, by far the best I have ever seen in any freshwater/ saltwater tank. They can clear the entire tank in about a day and leave the rock looking shiny like it was dipped in literal bleach, but they don’t touch coralline algae.

At first I thought these were both the same species, but upon seeing them side by side I realized they are probably not, but they must be closely related nonetheless.

I am confident they are native to south Florida and came along some water and seaweed I collected, but they also could have potentially come on some cheato or live rock from the local fish store.

The first one died and then the second one appeared about a couple weeks later.

They eat algae and expel waste out of the protrusions on their back like most Sacoglossa slugs, but I am not aware of any specific sacoglossa slugs that look like these.

Here are some pictures.

Please help me identify them!


The first slug.

The second slug.

 

[Chrisv.]

Neat! I'm always a little wary of random sea slugs. Are they reproducing in your tank?

 

[Heathcliff37]

Neat! I'm always a little wary of random sea slugs. Are they reproducing in your tank?

I dont know if They are reproducing. At first I thought the second one was an asexual offspring of the first, but looking at them side by side like this I’m not sure.

 

[Chrisv.]

I dont know if They are reproducing. At first I thought the second one was an asexual offspring of the first, but looking at them side by side like this I’m not sure.

There used to be a sea slug forum that I believe was hosted by a university in Australia. I think they ran out of funds so I don't think new posts can be made, but maybe in the depths of their thread archive...

I will try to find it...

 

[Chrisv.]

Well at least the googling was easy: http://www.seaslugforum.net/

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

The second slug looks a lot like a dolabella sea hare to me

 

[Heathcliff37]

Thank you! Going off of the previous posts, I was able to identify the slugs as members of the family Aplysiidae. The top one is definitely Petalifera ramose. The bottom one is an enigma, but that's okay. I'm thinking it's bursatella leachii but I'm not sure. With a purely aquarium diet it can look quite different than wild specimens.