Photo ID: Chiton that eats coralline algae?

[bonebrake]

Is there a chiton that eats coralline algae? I purchased this small rock from a LFS because it had a few sweet shrooms on it. I noticed the chiton right away, but I thought it was a dead skeleton of one because it was where the white spot is now (bottom right side of picture) for several days. Today I noticed it moved to its new location in the top left corner of the picture. Is it coincidental that it happened to be sitting on a spot of the rock where there is not coralline algae or is this guy eating the good stuff? Unless someone here knows, I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and wait and see if the spot is white that he is currently on the next time he moves. I know where he currently is had deep purple on it before he crawled on top.
:joy:

 

[bonebrake]

Bump.

 

[speg]

Yes of course. I have a few of these that ended up getting thrown into my sump because they were eating some of the best looking coralline that I had. They would match whatever color they were eating too... making them difficult to find. Mine were on Florida live rock.

 

[thomas712]

Not really to worry, they will eat some coralline when the microalgae gets used up, but they do far more good than harm.

 

[bonebrake]

Thanks for the replies. As of right now he has not moved. I will let everyone know if he is a coralline eater. If I had a lot of coralline I would let him in there, but my tank is only two months old and finished cycling one month ago and I do not have much at all. If the coralline is gone on the spot he is sitting on he is out. Unless there is some other benefit to this critter to outweigh his con.

 

[bang guy]

I don't know of any Chitons that don't eat coralline.

 

[speg]

Mine actually started working away small pieces of rock around where he had taken out a good sized area of coralline.

 

[bonebrake]

Originally Posted by Bang Guy
I don't know of any Chitons that don't eat coralline.
D'oh!

 

[amandal]

I had two that very beautifully matched my purple coraline. One was solid purple, the other was purple with white and black stripes. They came on FL live rock as well. They pretty much hung out on the same rock. If they ever ate any coraline, it wasn't enough to notice. They didn't take all the coraline off of the rock they were on, and certainly not the whole tank. I'd leave it in. They're pretty cool to look at. I'd say you hit the LR jackpot to get one.

 

[bonebrake]

Hey guys. Update on the chiton. He moved back to the place he was originally in where the white spot is in the picture. He took a tiny little chunk out of the coralline on the spot he was on. I think he is kind of cute; he is not going anywhere.
:joy:

 

[ophiura]

Interestingly, some species of chiton exhibit homing behavior, and will return to the same spot after feeding...often they erode away a small spot in the rock with time. But overall I think they are very interesting critters!

 

[speg]

Originally Posted by ophiura
Interestingly, some species of chiton exhibit homing behavior, and will return to the same spot after feeding...often they erode away a small spot in the rock with time. But overall I think they are very interesting critters!
Yes.. the ones I had would go chow down on some beautiful redish-purple coralline on a rock of mine.. for a while I let them.. then I started noticing the coralline becoming sparse... it couldnt grow fast enough to compete against the chitons.. i'd notice they'd go away for a while and i'd come back in the room a while later and they'd be right there again... completely blended in and matching the same color coralline they were eating.
When I did finally remove them they had chipped away a decent (for their size) area of my liverock. It actually left a hole in the rock! It's pretty amazing really. I've even heard that they may do that to the glass in your tank.

 

[celacanthr]

Well, they are very fascinating... Mine likes to stay on the glass under the sand bed (or the side of it depending on how you wanna define it) I haven't seen him recently...kinda getting worried, may have to do a search and rescue... probably not though...if he is dead under the sand bed, it would be a VERY bad idea fro me to try and fish him out... besides...my macro is looking scrawny, they could use the extra nitrates...
Well, anyways, I wanted to add that they have extremely powerful radula! The radula is actually reinforced with hematite! Hematite, registers at a 6 on the Moh's hardness scale! Diamonds register a 10!!! :scared: