California Sea Hare

Steven91 · May 2, 2018

Hey everyone,

I was looking at putting in a Sea Hare into my tank, as I seem to have a ton of green hair algae. I finally have control of the issue, cut down amount being fed, water changes, and Nopox, but my current clean up crew does not seem interested in what is on the rock (they love to clean the glass like no tomorrow). My foxface and Starry blenny pick at it but don't want to clean the rocks. I know sea hares are potential ticking time bombs (has anyone nuked their tank with one?), but I've seen them in action at my LFS and they are monsters against algae. Any input would be great please and I do run chemipure at all times as well

Spdstr280Z · May 2, 2018

An LFS where I used to live had a rental program, return the hare when your algae is gone. In smaller tanks starvation after the algae is gone is a concern. I never had a problem with mine, and they are far more interesting than I expected. I'm actually trying to remember how I lost him, it was a while back. I'm thinking he actually did wedge himself in to a power head. No problems with the tank afterward though.

Jason

Steven91 · May 2, 2018

Spdstr280Z said:
An LFS where I used to live had a rental program, return the hare when your algae is gone. In smaller tanks starvation after the algae is gone is a concern. I never had a problem with mine, and they are far more interesting than I expected. I'm actually trying to remember how I lost him, it was a while back. I'm thinking he actually did wedge himself in to a power head. No problems with the tank afterward though.

Jason

I'm not super worried about starvation as my tank is 120 gallons and when all the algae is gone I will end up feeding nori again. I like the idea as it will at least keep up with the algae. My LFS has 2 in their one tank and apparently the larger one loves to eat

cristata.reef · May 4, 2018

I had a Dolabella auricularia that I bought then returned to my LFS. Small one maybe 4-5 inches in length. Cleared a 10 gallon of green hair and film algae in about a week and a half (The algae was thick enough that I couldn't cut though it with a razor blade lol). I wouldn't worry about them nuking as long as you don't have any fluctuations and they're not being picked on.