sea hare

[littleliza]

does anyone know if there is a variety of sea hare small enough for a 12 gallon tank? I've heard descriptions of them from being thumb sized to baseball sized and that seems pretty huge. Other than that they sound like really interesting animals and should take care of my hair algae. Some posts also said they'll eat algae strips when they run out of food, does anyone have any first hand experience with this? I don't want to starve it, should I get one.

 

[nanomantis]

I have had extencive experience with sea hares and they will eat just about anything that it plant based. They are not picky eaters.

 

[littleliza]

are they reef safe?

 

[nanomantis]

I am not sure about every species but i believe the majority are only herbavorous. I would double check with whoever is selling you one before buying it if you end up getting one.

 

[harial]

We had one in dallas/Ft. Worth that basically got passed around the DFW Marine Aquarium Society members so it would eat everyone's algea. There weren't any complaints about it eating anything else. the owner got rich by charging 5 bucks a week to rent it.

 

[littleliza]

I've heard of stores doing this. I don't know if my LFS would consider something like that, but I might look into it a little further. I don't think I could sustain one myself unless they can get enough nutrition from algae strips.

 

[darth tang]

I had one at one point. I ran out of algae I wanted cleaned and gave it back. Now that I have more tanks I am thinking of getting one again and just rotating which tank it is weekly. Some won't take to algae strips and there is a debate if it will get enough nutrition from the strips still.

 

[tonyspumoni17]

im not sure how old this post is but i just had one in my 20 gallon long and he ravaged the thing clean i didnt realize that he wouldnt eat other algae until he was sick so i bought algae strips , gave him about 4 cubic inches of it(which he ate), and he was still dead by morning