Sea Hare Question

[lenny]

Well, long story short, due to the amount of waste food from the seahorses (from both the amount they require and the fact that they shred the food and their mouths and expel a lot of it through their gills), I've been having a bad green hair algae problem. After trying all the "usual" methods and tips I've been give, I purchased a large sea hare to help me out.

The sea hare is about the size of two twinkies put together the long way, and did a GREAT job at getting to a lot of the Green hair algae. I had him for about 10 days before I left for thanksgiving, and he was doing fine. I left Thursday, and my friend who was feeding my tank said he saw it on saturday. My problem is that since I returned sunday night, I have not seen the sea hare moving around the tank, in fact I havent seen it at all. (on a side note, i have two of the variety that stay really small (cant remember the name) and I havent seen those either...)

I guess my question is for those of you who've had them, do they like to hide during the day? Do they find a place to stay and camp out? Do they eat a bunch, then sleep it off for a few days (like us at thanksgiving? haha) .... I guess I'm just concerned, because I've read that upon death they release a lot of toxins into the water, and I'm scared that If I can't find him, he may be dead and poisoning my tank. Without tearing the whole tank apart, are there any suggestions based on your experiences with Sea Hares that I can try to lure him out of hiding (if he's hiding). I can see where they were active over the weekend because certain elements of my tank have been cleaned of the algae, but ... I havent seen them for at least 48 hours now....

Basically, any thoughts or Ideas would be welcome. If I have to tear up the tank I will, but I'd really like to avoid that.

 

[sshindell]

I had one for a long time - I always thought he had died because I had not seen him for months, and there he was again - mainly at night. It has now been about a year since I saw him, and no marks of him eating, so I think he finally died after about 2 years. There were no ill effects of his death, but it was in a 155 gallon and he was a bit smaller than yours.

Steve

 

[lenny]

Thanks steve, that makes me feel better, lol. The tank is a 90gal with a 30 gal sump

 

[sprayin70]

I like the little guys. I am thinking of getting one too. Where did you get yours Lenny?

Thanks

 

[lenny]

I got mine at Marine Fish. As of a few days ago they still had a few of the larger variety roaming around the coral tanks. I started with two of the small ones from there as well, but they don't seem to make a big dent... they do about the same cleanup as the larger mexican turbo snails, well, maybe a little better. The big sea hare though.... he's like an algae vacuum, lol. You can watch relatively large clumps just getting sucked into his mouth as he moves through the tank. I think the large one was $25 or something like that.

And a follow up, I finally saw him tonight, but I appreciate the responses. Being so new to this, I'd rather be safe then sorry, lol.