Sea Hare

[pmartin]

hello

i got a sea hare last week and i thought it was doing really well until today when i found it had died

i have a problem with algee (started to spead on the snad bed) and thought it would solve/assist in curbing it

have any of you had one before and if they last.

i have my tank stocked with 2 clowns, a cleaner shrimp, snails and hermit crabs. they all seem to be living in harmony.

any advise

should i try getting another one?

[PSH]

I have had a sea hare for about 4 months now. Every time I finally think it's dead it shows up again. My algae issues have went away but the sea hare still finds something to eat. I don't think it likes the 80x flow I have so it stays in the lower back rock work. I know most people say they don't live well in home aquariums. I don't think I will replace this one if it does die. Plus the sea hare is only going to mask the real algae problem. You need to find the source of the algae. For me is was my RO/DI filters. Once I fixed that the algae went away on it's own.

[pearsonhurst]

I too have heard they have a poor survival rate in home tanks. I wonder if they only eat very specific algae?

[CarmieJo]

I had one for a few weeks and then it too died. I don't think I have ever ran across someone who has had one for more than a few months.

[tim]

Originally Posted by CarmieJo

I had one for a few weeks and then it too died. I don't think I have ever ran across someone who has had one for more than a few months.

well Ya have now. I have had mine almost a year. I have several tanks I move him to on a regular basis. He does disappear somtimes for days but always shows up.

[BrianPlankis]

Originally Posted by pearsonhurst

I too have heard they have a poor survival rate in home tanks. I wonder if they only eat very specific algae?

This is somewhat true, there are a few reasons for their poor survival:

1. Some sea hares have pretty specific diets and will not survive long without their preferred food.

2. Some sea hares get very large and quickly starve in smaller tanks even if they can find a proper food source.

3. Many sea hares only live about a year or less in the wild and are sometimes collected when they are old and near the end, so they don't live long in tanks.

4. Sea hares do not handle high flow well, so they frequently end up stuck in overflows and powerhead screens.

The difficult thing is it is hard to determine which of the first 3 cause their deaths.

Brian

[Techknowledgy]

Mine died too after about a month.... but not before he cleaned up my tank of ALL hare (teee hee) algae. They live about a year, and eat a lot. Be very careful if they do die on you because they have an internal sack on their back that when exposed releases purple icky, smelly, and probably toxic stuff.