Sea Hares - good or bad idea

[HL]

I belive that sea hares r good at eating nuisence agle in a tank. But I read that once the agle has gone they will strave to death.

Once the agle has gone could they be feed on an supplement food?

Also, I belive that they can release ink if threaten - is this ink harmful to the other living things within the tank?

Every comments

[Jnicho]

They are algae munching machines that is for sure...and best with hair algae IMO...but because they have such an apatite they are really hard to keep long term...I think the amount of nutrients you would have to add to the tank to keep one alive long term would be counter productive...I've employed their services a couple times to clean up tanks that got out of hand...if used to rid the tank of algae and at the same time address the source of what's fueling said algae they can be very effective...I've always (and it's what I suggest to others) advertised them for sale via a local reef board or club once I'm done with them...they are never a problem to sell, there are always people wanting their services...as for the pretty purple ink...I had one that got sucked into pump intakes twice...not only did he amazingly survive virtually unscathed, but he inked A LOT while trapped...in a 200 gallon system the ink had no visible impact...in a smaller system it might, I don't know.

[jenglish]

A good way to take care of the problem temporarily... or maybe if you had a huge system you coudl keep one busy. I think you could rent yours out after it ran out of algae

[Bongo Shrimp]

Just so you know, sea hares don't actually release ink, it is a toxin released when they get stressed or die. When you said that it did not really affect your tank, you were lucky. In large quantities it can nuke a tank, just like sea apples do.

[Jnicho]

I'm not sure I completely agree...having seen the "purple ink" first hand, and knowing that my sea hare was trapped for some time releasing ink...just in the process of trying to free him I would estimate he easily "inked" 20+ times (I was surprised it could continue to ink for so long), which severly clouded that end of the tank...I do know that sea hares store toxins from the alga's they eat, but I don't think the ink that they release is anywhere near the level of that of a Sea Apple...as I stated I have a fairly large volume of water (200 gallons), but even with the large amount of ink released I saw absolutely no ill effects at all...in a smaller tank it might be an issue, but any reasonable sized system should be able to handle it...and a good skimmer removes the ink very quickly...I was very concerned when this scenario played out in my tank as I was under the impression the ink was very toxic...after experiencing it first hand, and in the rather large volume of ink release, I have to believe that like many things this carries some hype.

[Bongo Shrimp]

Ok, well I'm not trying to start a big fight about this but although it looks like ink, it really isn't. Octopi release ink, if you were to compare the octopus ink with the "ink" from a sea hare, the compositions would differ. But that's besides the point. I too have seen them "inking" in person and in a 200g tank I am not surprised that you did not see any real effects. I do however know someone who had one trapped against a powerhead in a 120g and it released the toxins and crashed his tank. I'm no expert though and accept the fact that I could be wrong about the whole ink thing. This is just my understanding of it.

[bcrum51]

I had one disaappear in a 40g and I was freaked for awhile but no i'll affects so it can't be to terrible unless he's still in there