Is this a land slug in ny aquarium?

[Cameron2585]

Just finished doing a water fhange and found a big striped slug on one of my plants. Is this a land slug that somehow found its way into my tank?

 

[SparkyJones]

Well. Difficult question. If it has antenna it's a slug and if not a leech.

A snail can't live without a shell, and there's only like 7 known freshwater slugs in the world, 1 from the Caribbean and 6 from Asia, all usually right around 1 cm in size.

It's a very under studied species though, slugs, and even more so the freshwater species.
There may be more out there or larger than the 7 known ones, or it might be a land slug in there but if so I'd think it would drown.

All I know. Hope it helps.

 

[Cameron2585]

Arrived back home and found it just laying at the bottom of the tank and I took it out because I thought it had died but it started moving once it was out of the tank so I'm going to assume its just a land slug. It will make a good meal for my assassin snails but I have no idea how it got into the tank though

 

[Fishfur]

Arrived back home and found it just laying at the bottom of the tank and I took it out because I thought it had died but it started moving once it was out of the tank so I'm going to assume its just a land slug. It will make a good meal for my assassin snails but I have no idea how it got into the tank thoughView attachment 886837

Sometimes critters just make mistakes but a fish tank isn’t something a slug could understand in a way that could save it from falling in once it had found its way to the rim.

 

[Cameron2585]

Sometimes critters just make mistakes but a fish tank isn’t something a slug could understand in a way that could save it from falling in once it had found its way to the rim.

I do have pothos growing out of the tank so the only explanation would be that the slug came in on the pothos and fell in the tank but I still dont understand how. I washed all of the plant before I put it in and it's been in there for 2 months now.

 

[Fishfur]

I do have pothos growing out of the tank so the only explanation would be that the slug came in on the pothos and fell in the tank but I still dont understand how. I washed all of the plant before I put it in and it's been in there for 2 months now.

Chances are you won’t find out how it got there but if it had been eating the pothos you’d have noticed the damage. Slugs can do a great deal of damage to plants. But they need humidity and are not normally out and about in the day where sunlight and higher temperatures can dry them out. It’s possible it might have been attracted to the tank area generally by the humidity.

 

[SparkyJones]

Most everything doesn't eat slugs, they will try, but they taste bitter and most everything don't like them.

 

[kuhlkid]

They can also carry a wide variety of gut parasites. Not certain of the likelihood that said parasites are present and could affect your fish, but to be safe I think I would relocate the slug to the outdoors.

 

[Cameron2585]

They can also carry a wide variety of gut parasites. Not certain of the likelihood that said parasites are present and could affect your fish, but to be safe I think I would relocate the slug to the outdoors.

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately the slug had already been devoured when I read this so hopefully it wasnt carrying anything. I put the slug in and the assasin snails were all over it within a few minutes