Sea Hare Pic

[sharks]

Here is a pic of it in action.
It munched the HA down close to the rock. Pulling clumps at a time in.
This way the fish, hermits, and snails can take care of the rest.
We now love and fully endorse these ugly SOB’s

 

[mick77]

Do they need a constant diet of algae? Will they eat the dreaded cyano? Are they sandsifters as well? Sorry I'm asking so many questions, but they look like fascinating creatures, problem is I don't have any hair algae and I already have 3 cukes in my 100, so I don't know if there would be enough "food" for it to eat.

 

[sharks]

Mick,
Wish I knew
I am tempted to try one and see if they eat this…

http://www.globaldialog.com/~jrice/algae_page/lobophora.htm

Here is the LiveAquaria.com page

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?siteid=23&pCatId=726

I am tempted to give it a try with this wafer crap I have.
It does say they prefer an aquarium with live rock and open sandy areas.
If I can find one small enough I will try it for my algae issue.
Also note they eat calerpra and according to a few people I’ve talked to Nori too.
If it doesn’t work for me I will sell it before it fades away and poisons my tank.
I know enough reefers with HA that we can just pass it around locally (Sad to say)
HIH
S

 

[Bryan Thompson]

They burrow in the sand to sleep sometimes. They do eat stuff off the top of the sand. They also eat detritus! We feed ours flake food since they have cleaned our entire system.

We have only lost one ever. It actually died do to the bag being smashed during shipping.

I doubt they can poison your tank. Read the entire thread that I posted the link to. I can't speak for the type that LiveAquria is selling since they are not the same, but the one we did loose was very large and in a 40 breeder. I was out of town for 3 days and came back to a blob in the corner. Not a single coral or invert was harmed.

Give them a try,

Bryan
Blowfish Aquatics

 

[sharks]

Thanks Bryan

I'm sold! They are awesome little creatures IMO
S

 

[sharks]

Edit

 

[angnak]

Edit????

 

[Boomer]

Here is a not so good pic of it!

Here is a pic of it in action.

Where, I don't seen any pics

 

[LuckyInk]

Boomer,
I think this thread is another victom of the database corruption we experienced a while back that removed some attached pics. Sorry.
C

 

[Boomer]

Ok C

 

[sharks]

Well then I’ll just have to resubmit them to fix the problem.
I absolutely love these guys for HA. So long as you remove all power heads and prefilter any strong intakes.
They rid the badly covered tank of almost all the HA in just 3-4 weeks.
Here is the one in action. This was when the 180 display tank in the LFS was in bad shape.

 

[sharks]

Here are two that I bought still being acclimated. I hoped they would eat the Lobophora variegata in my tank. Well they didn’t and I sold them at the shop.
I believe the large one is a Dolabella Auricularia. Not sure what the baby one is.

 

[sharks]

And here is the baby one in my tank.

 

[Woodstock]

Thanks for the pictures!
Here is an interesting article on sea hares: http://www.seaslugforum.net/factsheet.cfm?base=seahatac

 

[Boomer]

Sharks

I think you are right on the first one. The "baby" looks like a Dolabrifera dolabrifera from the Caribbean.

http://www.seaslugforum.net/display.cfm?id=12618

And yes they can release toxins. It is usually a purple to pink ink.

I did find this though;

When stressed they can release a fish-repelling purple "ink" that will quickly pollute the water and stress out or even kill the inhabitants of the tank.

Ok, just found all this for you


http://www.seaslugforum.net/factsheet.cfm?base=seahatac

 

[ste]

i have had one for a while when i first got it, my yellow tang harassed it and it let out the purple ink. i ran extra canister filter with carbon and it cleared it up,to date i have no loss of life in my tank, also no hair algae

 

[sharks]

I agree that they can release the toxin but are far less likely to then some of the other species. We lost 2 in a 180 to power heads. But we knew they were doing the trick for us. I removed the PH's and added a SCWD on a little giant pump with a prefilter. After that they made quick work of the HA.
Thanks for the info on the mini version. Now I know and can better educate the customer.

I know a few people keeping the Dolabella Auricularia with no one reporting massive fish losses. Even in “small” tanks. Either way I think it’s a great alternative to scrubbing rocks, tons of cleaners, and chemical reactors. Bottom line is even if all of the above are employed it’s still critical to figure out the root source of the HA. Poor make up water, a bad RO/DI system, to many fish, to much food, or an old DSB. These are common problems that are easily fixed. The hares helped us clean up the situation. But if we didn’t fix our RO problem it would have been a waste of money.

After we fixed the RO the tank saw a dramatic turn for the better. The hares saved us from scrubbing, plucking, even taking down parts of the reef. Once the problem was gone we sold off the hares. I know almost every hobbyist has a reef friend that can take a hare here and there. So it became a situation of helping another reefer. I recently spoke to the guy that bought our hares and he fixed his system and sold them again. The person he sold them to sold them again.
I will continue to speak the praises of hares if you are willing to find a home for them after you fix your problem.

Oh and did I mention how cool they are to watch eat the bane of you system. We had a real satisfaction of finally wining the war.
S

 

[JFK_Jr]

I just picked up this cute little guy from Bali... It's a really interesting creature. Hopefully he'll like the algae growing in my tank!