So I have been doing a lot of reading today about sea slugs and although I haven't found much about
E. diomedea, I have found some common culturing techniques. First, the surface is a huge problem. Successful culturing uses cetyl alcohol flakes sprinkled on the surface to keep the veligers from becoming trapped on the surface. An alternative is to put them in a flask, fill it to the tippy top, and cover it with parafilm (or plastic wrap) to elimnate the surface problem. The successses I have seen have all utilzed T-iso (
Bursatella leachii, Hermissenda crassicornis, Aplysia californica, Aplysia brasiana, and IIRC
E. clarki...but don't have that paper handy to verify again, and I am sure there are others) to some extent.
H. crassicornis was raised successfullly with Isochrysis and Monochrysis lutheri.
One paper I saw about
Aplysia californica did feeding experiments with the veligers and compared survival between diets . Best survival was with 1:1 T-Iso and
Chaetoceros muelleri (gracilis) (Larval growth, development, and survival of laboratory-reared Aplysia californica: effects of diet and veliger density. Capo et al. 2009)
Culture of the larvae seems to be done at room temperature for many of these guys, and with no aeration (at least none is mentioned). So it seems that 2L bottles could possibly be used in place of erlenmeyer flasks and petri dishes. The room temperature culture may allow for greater experimention since you wouldn't have to worry then about heating multiple tanks. I haven't had access to all of the papers to read the methods sections in detail, so a bit of experimentation is necessary
My first question is if a motile algae needs to be present. With my
Bursatella leachii, success of culturing was reached without using air...but if there is no movement, is it better to have motile algaes? Or is the T-iso a nutrional issue only? Or is it a size issue? Many of the successes are with T-Iso, Monochrysis, Rhodomonas and one paper I read mentioned nanno chloroplasts found in the gut of an
Elysia sp veliger (can't remember which one)...all of those are on the "small" side. Is that suggestive of requirement only of a "smaller" phyto? The other thing is they have all been live phytos. I don't know if the veligers are selective for live foods or not, or if it is more that live phytos remain in suspension easier, or what.
Bursatella leachii veligers are TINY when they hatch, so aeration even with a slow bubble probably had them flinging out of the water and getting stuck on the sides (I found quite a few dried up on the sides of my container)
This is a bit rambly, but I am working on
Bursatella and have two
Elysia sp. also (not sure if they are E. clarki or E. crispata yet) that I hope to work with soon if they lay any eggs for me, so I am doing a lot of reading about it and wanted to share what I have found with you in case some of it helps