Sea Hare Back Splitting - Shell Showing

[LizzDregne]

My heart is filled with sadness: my Dolabella/Wedge Sea Hare's back has split open and his shell is sticking out.

It happened overnight.
My parameters are:
1.024 salinity
.5ppm Nitrates
0/0 Ammonia/Nitrites

I bought him two weeks ago to clear out a ton of green hair algae, there is plenty still left so he was not starved or thin.
I have an emerald crab & a tiny hermit crab, but have not seen any aggression toward him on their part.

Am I right to assume he is dying?
Can my Sea Hare be saved?

 

[Topekoms]

Seahares don't have shells not exactly sure what is going on though

 

[Specific Ocean]

Could be something else going on with your water parameters other than SG and nitrates

 

[LizzDregne]

Seahares don't have shells not exactly sure what is going on though

Thanks. They do, their "shell" is internal. It should never be showing.

 

[ajhudson15]

Thanks. They do, their "shell" is internal. It should never be showing.

sea hares shrink as they die form no food. so unless there shell shrinks also which I doubt is possible im not sure how they have a shell. is it possible yours ate a shell and its stuck in there

 

[ajhudson15]

Thanks. They do, their "shell" is internal. It should never be showing.

I just looked it up and they do have shells so I apologize. ive never seen that. ive had one slowly start to shrink and die with nothing left behind and the shell is calcified so its odd to think the shell would shrink to

 

[Topekoms]

When mine died it just melted never saw a shell. But I learned something new today

 

[LizzDregne]

Could be something else going on with your water parameters other than SG and nitrates

I guess that's true, too... my water quality seems to be good enough for the other stuff and my corals are ok.

I did have a temp drop starting Sunday night when my heater got unplugged during the water change. It was 78.5, temped down to 74 degrees for about 15 hours, caught Monday morning so it took a bit to warm up again. Now it's 79.5. No one else in the tank seemed to be affected, but I wonder if that was enough for my poor Sea Hare.

 

[Nick428]

Not sure what pumps you have. But i have had one get sucked into a wave pump. Maybe yours escaped getting blended. Seems there could also be a nocturnal predator.

Maybe a gorilla crab?

 

[LizzDregne]

I pulled him out of the tank because I don't want his toxins to affect the other fish. I suppose I should do another water change just in case. I am disappointed, because he was a nice addition to the cast of characters in my tank and did a fantastic job cleaning up the algae.

 

[LizzDregne]

Not sure what pumps you have. But i have had one get sucked into a wave pump. Maybe yours escaped getting blended. Seems there could also be a nocturnal predator.

Maybe a gorilla crab?

I did have the circulation pump covered to keep him from getting sucked in. I really tried to make sure I had all the bases covered so he would have a good home.

 

[zalick]

That happens when they are dying. In my experience they don't recover when the shell starts showing. Sorry.

Despite tons of algae, that exact thing happened to my last hare. I think the dinos killed it.

 

[LizzDregne]

That happens when they are dying. In my experience they don't recover when the shell starts showing. Sorry.

Despite tons of algae, that exact thing happened to my last hare. I think the dinos killed it.

I wish I could take him to a specialist & find out for sure.

 

[zalick]

I wish I could take him to a specialist & find out for sure.

He looks to be full grown. That is a dolabella.

From everything thing I've read the typical lifespan in aquariums is around 6 months maybe up to 12 if lucky. You'll read online that they can live up to 4-6 years but I've yet to see anyone actually have one that lives that long.

Since yours is full grown, who knows how old it was and it could have been near end of life anyway.

 

[Specific Ocean]

They’re known to split. That’s why I’m led to believe that water parameters are the culprit. There was still algae for it to graze on so it wasn’t starvation. Does your SG fluctuate?

 

[LizzDregne]

They’re known to split. That’s why I’m led to believe that water parameters are the culprit. There was still algae for it to graze on so it wasn’t starvation. Does your SG fluctuate?

Not wildly, but I did make some changes this weekend when I did the water change. I added a sponge and some fresh bio media to the back filter (note that I only added some fresh, I did not take any out). I also changed the flow somewhat by adjusting the filter nozzles so that one was doing more to agitate the surface and the other is helping direct water toward the intake.

The water change probably did make a difference. I took extra care in cleaning spots that had been cleared of algae and moved a rock from one side of the tank to the other so there had to be some disturbance of detritus. I also disturbed the filtration system sponges & existing biomedia when I added the new biomedia.

Any one of these things could have done it, I suppose. I feel like I might be over-thinking it.