sea hare

[ZOOT098]

thinking about buying a sea hare to eliminate my hair algea

anything special about acclimation i need to know????

 

[daugherty]

make shure it has a home after it cleans your tank or it will die.

 

[dustin_P74]

+1 daugherty, and just drip it like you would any other invert

 

[Bifferwine]

Nothing special. I think they are the best algae eaters out there. But they do tend to run out of food fast, so check with your LFS that you can bring it back.

 

[daugherty]

what about lettuce nuds since they are part photosynthetic? will they almost always die also

 

[Bifferwine]

Lettuce nudis specialize on one type of algae, bryopsis. Since they only eat bryopsis, they often end up starving to death. Even if there is bryopsis, they usually only live for a few weeks.

 

[daugherty]

i just read a thing that says that they eat hair and sometimes bubble let me see if i can find the article

 

[daugherty]

here it is i guess it is just bubble alage
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-02/hcj/feature/index.php

The performance of commonly-available herbivorous snails (Turbo spp., Trochus spp., and Astraea spp.) seems abysmal against most bubble algae, their rasps typically insufficient for tearing into the vesicles of all but the youngest bubble algae vesicles. Such gastropods DO have the advantage of a fairly wide patrol area for their size, and against widely-scattered, newly-settled spores and young growth, they likely exert valuable pressure. Certain sacoglossan slugs have been reported as occasionally feeding on bubble algae, including the popular Tridachia crispata. A recently described species, Ercolania endophytophaga (Jensen 1999) seems to target Valonia algae particularly, somehow entering a vesicle without rupturing it, and then consuming tissue and spores from the inside(!).

 

[yote]

I've got a Lettuce nudi that love hair.Had he 2 or 3 weeks now and he's always eatting that crap.

 

[Rugie]

sea hares & other nudies are best left in the sea, if we stop buying them the will not be at our mercy. they all die in a short period of time in aquaria. (even in the dealers tanks)

 

[bigploch]

So if you don't use a sea hare or nudi, what do you use to keep hair algae from taking over a young tank??

 

[Bifferwine]

Mexican turbo snails work well too.

 

[vince]

hi.bigploch firstly, if you make plans to pass the hare onto other aquarists with the same problem (making sure that acclimation is proper) then the point is mute. Hair algae will always take over a new tank, it is expected & it will over several weeks start to receed. the cycles are predictable & short lived. there is no need for a nudi in a new tank, it will run out of food and will need to be passed on to other reefers befor it starves to death. the nitrogen components along with po4 are precursers to hair algae, & cyno bacteria. the diatoms are also short lived and not a problem. patience is key.