Sea hare only eating sand??

[Boehmtown]

I got a sea hare a week ago, all it does is eat sand and poop it out it's back. It's oolitic sand and a deep sand bed. He doesn't climb the walls or the rocks or anything. Just eats sand day and night. Never burrows, never really hides, sometimes he'll take a nap behind a Goni or stick his head under something like a toddler trying to hide.

Anyone have this experience??? I tried gha, macro algae and nori, just goes around it and keeps eating sand.

I am wondering if it's a certain species that only eats substrate algaes, or it's really weak and is just kinda limping around eating something it likes in the sand. Any opinions

 

[blaxsun]

Mine never touched the stuff... My sea cucumbers on the other hand...

 

[Boehmtown]

It's definitely a sea hare

 

[Boehmtown]

Bump..... Anyone keep these things before? I'm starting to think it's just something he likes in there. He's really flying around my sand bed now, like it's running out of what he likes

 

[Alexraptor]

Yes I have, and that kind of behavior really doesn't sound like a sea hare. Got any pictures?

 

[Boehmtown]

 

[Alexraptor]

Yes that is definitely a sea hare, how curious. My guess then would be that it's probably going for algal growth on the sand. From personal experience I have seen turf and hair algae quite readily grow on coarser grains of sand.

 

[reeftivo]

make sure to keep an eye on the sea hare. they are notorious for starving to death pretty quick in closed systems. Nori is a good supplement if they run out of surface algae to graze on.

i say keep an eye on it because when they are dying or stressed they can pollute the tank and dump ink into the system as they melt. i found that out after my last one met a vortech. it wasn't pretty. a sign there may be trouble is if it just sits or rocks back and forth on the current without traveling. they are constant movers.

they like lower nutrients which is counter productive for the abundance of algae they need so supplementing a sheet of nori can always help.

 

[Boehmtown]

make sure to keep an eye on the sea hare. they are notorious for starving to death pretty quick in closed systems. Nori is a good supplement if they run out of surface algae to graze on.

i say keep an eye on it because when they are dying or stressed they can pollute the tank and dump ink into the system as they melt. i found that out after my last one met a vortech. it wasn't pretty. a sign there may be trouble is if it just sits or rocks back and forth on the current without traveling. they are constant movers.

they like lower nutrients which is counter productive for the abundance of algae they need so supplementing a sheet of nori can always help.

Thanks for the info. I have very low nutrients due to an aggrest algae scrubber and I've put. Nori and the scrubber algae and macro algae in a clip, in his path every day,
Just pushes it out of the way and eats the sand. I plan on passing the hot potato back to my LFS if he doesn't end up adapting well