{"id":2451,"date":"2019-04-12T17:49:29","date_gmt":"2019-04-12T17:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/?p=2451"},"modified":"2019-04-12T17:49:31","modified_gmt":"2019-04-12T17:49:31","slug":"kleptoplastastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/?p=2451","title":{"rendered":"Kleptoplastastic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My marine tank is looking pretty dismal — the coral are chronically unhappy and there’s way too much algae. For a while I was secretly nurturing hair algae so I would have an excuse to buy some Elysia<\/a> slugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Elysia clarki, probably<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Elysia are another great example of the oceans totally messing with my expectations about what’s a plant and what’s not — these slugs eat plants and, in eating them, become like plants, sequestering the chloroplasts and photosynthesizing most of the food they need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The slugs did a great job of looking good but didn’t make much of a dent in the algae. The adults I got from Florida laid lots of eggs in the refugium and then promptly died (no idea if that’s part of their plan or a judgement on my poor aquarium-keeping-skills) — I shot a lot of video of the eggs and veligers and now have at least two, possibly three, tiny slugs growing up in the main tank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n