Black slug-reef friend or foe

[labnjab]

I noticed a black slug around 1/2 inch long crawling around tonight, it must have hitchiked on the chunk of live rock my kenya tree came on. Its black and looks kinda hairy, is this a good hitchiker, or a bad one? Thanks for any help.

[cocoa_pleco]

do you have a pic? im however 60% sure its safe if its the one im thinking of

[labnjab]

Here's the best I could get last night. The lights were out, and since I had no fish to startle I could use the flash. http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f370/jabsgirlforever/P1010001-18-1.jpg

Its hard to make it out exactly, but the pic shows how I saw it too.

[Halelorf]

Does it have sort of a thumbnail sized shell on it's back that only covers part of it. If so it's a stomatella, those are reef safe and very awesome. http://www.melevsreef.com/id/black_stomatella.html

[oldhead]

Looks to be a nudibranch of some sort. Hard to tell which from the picture though.

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

If it looks kind of hairy there is the possibility that it is a Sea Hare. Sea Hares are 100% safe but they have one major drawback; they only eat hair algae. Once they run out of hair algae they will starve to death.

[labnjab]

It did look like it was hairy, but it was hard to tell, but it didn't look like it had a shell. I'll have to get a better look when I see it again I'm gonna be building a sump and have decided to section it to make a refugium, can I grow hair algae in the refugium and place the hair in there so it will survive? At the rate my mexican turbo snail is going, I won't have any hair algae left in a few weeks.

[kaybee]

Hard to say what it is, but it looks a lot like the black Stomatella in the link Halelorf provided (maybe the one you have has a shell the same color as its body). Of course it could be anything.

If it's a nudibranch, it might not be the type which consumes algae.

The sea hare's I've seen have been lighter in color (and huge...human heart sized)...but all big things start small.

[labnjab]

I finally got an up close look at it and it does look like a stomatella, the shell is the exact same color as its body

[jimpierce]

does it look like this guy?

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z65/myfildren/tank/tanknow009.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j63/jimpierce7/tank/tank2038-1.jpg