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InvertebrateMarineIntermediate
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Lettuce Sea Slug
Elysia crispata
The Lettuce Sea Slug is a fascinating marine sacoglossan mollusk renowned for its ruffled appearance and its ability to utilize solar energy through kleptoplasty.
Class:Gastropoda
Order:Sacoglossa
Family:Plakobranchidae
Genus:Elysia
Species:Elysia crispata
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Water Temperature
22 - 26 °C
pH Value
8.1 - 8.4
Water type
Marine
Adult size
15 cm
Minimum group
>= 1
KH
8 - 12 dKH
Species description
Geographical Origin and Habitat: Widely distributed in the warm waters of the tropical Western Atlantic, including the Caribbean Sea, Florida, and the Gulf of Mexico. It inhabits shallow coastal waters, quiet lagoons, patch reefs, and seagrass beds at depths up to 15 meters, where sunlight penetration is high.
Taxonomy: Belongs to the class Gastropoda, order Sacoglossa, and family Plakobranchidae. This sea slug is famous for its specialized feeding behavior on siphonous green algae, extracting and keeping their functional chloroplasts within its own digestive gland, a process known as kleptoplasty.
Social Behavior: An entirely peaceful and slow-moving invertebrate. It spends its day crawling on rocks and algae beds, spreading its highly folded parapodia to catch maximum light. It displays no aggression towards other tank mates and behaves as a harmless herbivore.
Coloration and Sexual Dimorphism: Exhibits a range of colors from pale green to bluish-green, yellow, or off-white, often with light speckles or brightly colored margins on its ruffled folds. It is a simultaneous hermaphrodite, meaning it possesses both male and female reproductive organs, and has no visible sexual dimorphism.
Care, breeding and tankmates
Tank Setup: Needs a mature marine aquarium of at least 80-100 liters with plenty of established live rock. Crucially, all pump intakes and wavemakers must be securely covered with pre-filters or foam guards, as these soft-bodied creatures are easily drawn in and killed.
Diet and Feeding: Obligate herbivore. It feeds selectively on green macroalgae, particularly Bryopsis, Derbesia, and Caulerpa. It punctures the algal cell walls with its radula and sucks out the cellular fluids. If its target algae species are depleted in the tank, it will starve to death.
Water Quality: Requires standard reef parameters: temperature 23°C to 26°C, specific gravity 1.023 to 1.025, pH 8.1 to 8.4, and zero ammonia and nitrite. Nitrate and phosphate levels must be kept low. Like all marine mollusks, it is highly sensitive to copper treatments.
Compatibility and Tankmates: Completely reef-safe and harmless to corals. Safe to keep with peaceful community fish and small reef invertebrates. Avoid housing with predatory fish, large crabs, lobsters, or wrasses that actively hunt soft-bodied mollusks.
Aquarium Breeding: Breeding is possible but difficult. As simultaneous hermaphrodites, they mate to cross-fertilize. They deposit spiral gel bands of yellow-white eggs on flat surfaces. The resulting veliger larvae are planktonic and require dedicated culture setups to raise successfully.
Risks and Diseases: Starvation is the number one cause of mortality in captivity once nuisance algae like Bryopsis are consumed. Physical injury from unprotected powerheads, overflow drains, or handling is also a major risk due to their delicate, fluid-filled bodies.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Widely distributed in the warm waters of the tropical Western Atlantic, including the Caribbean Sea, Florida, and the Gulf of Mexico. It inhabits shallow coastal waters, quiet lagoons, patch reefs, and seagrass beds at depths up to 15 meters, where sunlight penetration is high.
Origin
Tropical oceans and reefsCentral America and CaribbeanNorth AmericaEast Asia
Invertebrate profile
- Diet
- No verified data available
- Ecological role
- No verified data available
- Life expectancy
- No verified data available
- Adult size
- 15 cm
- Jump risk
- No verified data available
- Shock sensitivity
- No verified data available
- Calcium and minerals
- No verified data available
- Molting
- No verified data available
- Reproduction
- No verified data available
- Compatibility & tankmates
- No verified data available
The catalog's scalar value is 15 cm. The MOBS marine organism body-size database source reports a maximum adult measurement of 15 cm for this species, recorded as the dataset's reported length dimension. These figures are not interchangeable: the first is the profile's editorial reference, whereas the second is a published maximum under a specific measurement convention; differences among sources can reflect sex, population, life stage and measuring method.
Image gallery
Licensed images linked to the species or, when marked, to the closest representative taxon.
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