Sea Hare? Nudibranch? Dangerous hitchiker?

craig_08

craig_08

Member
I am not exactly a newbie but I didn't know where else to post. I got bit of live rock today with a bunch of cool hitchikers (mushrooms, xenia, brittle star) and also one that I am not sure about. As much as I can tell it appears to be a sea hare. It is about 2 inches long and an inch wide. It is black and white marbled with a stripe down the middle. It also has random fuzzy protrusions along its body. Finally it has a snout thing that looks kinda like what a tunicate looks like on rock.
What has me scared is, when I tried to catch him he flexes his back open along the stripe and bulges his insides almost out of its body (sorry cant explain it any better than that). It kinda looks like a milky loogie is shooting out of its back. Whenever i jumped back, it started taking off and sucked the "loogie" back in. Is he going to explode? Is he going to kill my tank? Toxic? What should I do?
If it is a sea hare and this is normal, how do I safely get it out and into an established tank with hair algae? Help please!?
 
bellanavis

bellanavis

Active Member
I can't really tell from that, let me find some picturesof the diffrent kinds of seahares, and you can tell me if it looks like one of them, brb.
 
bellanavis

bellanavis

Active Member
Ok, well, I tried to post some pictures, but they are not loading, it keeps saying invalid file, email me at bellanavis@aol.com, and I will send the pictures to you, and you can let me know from there. If it turns out to be a seahare,. it will not bite, just pick it up, I pick mine up all the time, they even crawl onto my hand sometines. Just be gental, if they feel stressed out, they can ink, and the ink can be toxic to your fish/coral/inverts. If you would rather, just wait till its on a rock,. and pick the whole rock up, and put it where you want.
 
bellanavis

bellanavis

Active Member
From what I can tell, it does look like a seahare, your lucky, they are great to have. What other kinds of stuff do you have in your tank?
 
nygel

nygel

Active Member
oh, and i wouldnt touch it, I don't think that stuff is poisonous or anything, btu it doesn't look fun to touch and I've never tried to touch mine.
 
bellanavis

bellanavis

Active Member
It will be alright with those tankmates. If you don't have any alge, and it will eat any alge, get some alge pellets, or strips, and it will eat them. It looks like its on your overflow box, don't let it get sucked up there, it might ink.
 
bellanavis

bellanavis

Active Member
Does it look like it has a shell? Seahares are soft, unless they are dead, sometimes when they die, they get hard. If it has a shell, its not a seahare.
 
nygel

nygel

Active Member
yeah, i dont think its a seahare, seahares dont have that armor like stuff going on and are way bigger usually, its definately a cowry, it could be a money cowry (i've got some, they're cool.)
 
bellanavis

bellanavis

Active Member
I rally can't be sure from the picture. All I know, that seahares are that small, its rare to get a large one, they mostly die, after mating, and if I were to take a picture of mine, and it was blurry, it would look like that, but bigger, I was lucky, I paid alot to get 2 large ones. I'm not trying to argue, just love giving info out about seahares, I love them. I know, I'm weird.
 
nygel

nygel

Active Member
no no, its a cowry, a cowry pushes that stuff over it, trust me.... i'll go get soem pics of mine with and without it (or try)
 
bellanavis

bellanavis

Active Member
I think it might be a seahare. I would not worry about it, the only thing that is weird, is you said it shot that white stuff out.
 
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