Sea hare Questions

[Nigel35]

I'm considering a sea hare as a quick fix for my hair algae problem. I have done much manual removal and running a phosphate reactor due to the elevated phosphates captured in the tank and hair algae with it growing back quite quickly. Once it has devoured all the algae I plan to re-home it or supplement its diet as it is a very interesting creature. I am moderately concerned about other tank inhabitants bothering it. I have a fairly aggressive flame angel who has been known to nip at snails when exposed, would it pose a threat to a sea hare? My other concern is that since my tank is dense with soft and hard corals will the sea hare be stung (I've heard chalices are sometimes deadly) or unable to reach hair algae around the tank because of the amount of corals? I have carbon already being used In the tank in case of inking or toxin release and am ready for a large water change. Replies greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Nigel

 

[Nigel35]

bump

 

[ZoWhat]

So you put in a hare, he eats a lot of the algae, you remove him, then what?

Longterm you need to up your beneficial bacteria that eats no3 and po4. Thats achieved thru carbon dosing, feeding the good bacteria with nopox, or vodka, oe vinegar.

You just have to research what carbon source you want to use

 

[Nigel35]

So you put in a hare, he eats a lot of the algae, you remove him, then what?

Longterm you need to up your beneficial bacteria that eats no3 and po4. Thats achieved thru carbon dosing, feeding the good bacteria with nopox, or vodka, oe vinegar.

You just have to research what carbon source you want to use

Precisely the way in which I would burn the remaining phosphates. I believe the sea hare would effectively remove the hair algae from the system and then from their remove the rest by chemical means and then achieve a more stable phosphate level.

Would any of the previous concerns and questions be of issue?

 

[ZoWhat]

You beat algae by starving it

Approach #1 - adding macro algea like Chaeto that eats the no3 and po4 BEFORE the nuisance algae does

Approach #2 - carbon dose so the beneficial bacteria that GROWS in the watercolumn eats to no3 and po4 BEFORE the nuisance algae does

No leftover no3 po4, the nuisance algae starves, dies off.

But you want a hare, you just want confirmation. It's cool....

 

[Nigel35]

I totally agree with what you are saying entirely. And understand that by simply taking the hair algae out doesn't solve the problem you need to stop the algae from getting the nutrients either by competition or removal of phosphates from the water column. I mistakenly ordered the sea hare already and would appreciate if the questions previously listed could be answered. The reason for purchasing the sea hare would be an exciting way to remove the hair algae and then chemically starve it out. Like you said I would enjoy confirmation. Thanks again for the replies.

 

[blaxsun]

The sea hare should be fine with the corals (they spend most of their time on the glass). They can be fairly sensitive to water parameters, so make sure you acclimate properly. In terms of will it be safe from your other inhabitants, the answer is maybe (I know it would be fine in my tank, but yours is anyone's guess).

A good alternative to a sea hare is an abalone as it has that hardened exterior shell, and they go anywhere and everywhere at a very quick pace.

 

[Eldredge]

I had a fairly large sea hare years ago. It devoured hair algae for a couple of weeks and then disappeared.

I don’t know if that’s very helpful, but in my experience they definitely eat a lot of hair algae and there were no problems when it died. Good luck

 

[GHOSTLY]

It's a good temporary solution but nutrients will always stay. Figure out the source but its a good idea@

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

So you put in a hare, he eats a lot of the algae, you remove him, then what?

Longterm you need to up your beneficial bacteria that eats no3 and po4. Thats achieved thru carbon dosing, feeding the good bacteria with nopox, or vodka, oe vinegar.

You just have to research what carbon source you want to use a lo

So you put in a hare, he eats a lot of the algae, you remove him, then what?

Longterm you need to up your beneficial bacteria that eats no3 and po4. Thats achieved thru carbon dosing, feeding the good bacteria with nopox, or vodka, oe vinegar.

You just have to research what carbon source you want to use

I’m not sure I can agree on this one. I have 0 nitrates and phosphates and I have a massive forest of GHA that grows back to 3-6 inches covering all of my live rock within weeks of a full scrub of it.

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

I’m not sure I can agree on this one. I have 0 nitrates and phosphates and I have a massive forest of GHA that grows back to 3-6 inches covering all of my live rock within weeks of a full scrub of it.

If you have coral, it’s impossible to starve GHA because you’d also be starving your coral. Right?

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

Bump. I see this so much “starve algae to beat it”. Again I went months with 0 nitrates and phosphates and had tons of GHA. Main things that worked for me as I’m finally beating my GHA is

*Sea Hare
*lowered to 7 hours of light with 5 of peak light, lowered intensity to around 25%
*Tuxedo Urchins
*Tang gang

Am I missing something? Starving did nothing to my GHA. 0 0 doesn’t mean there aren’t any Phosphates or Nitrates, it just means they’re being sucked up as they’re added (as you feed) (probably sucked up by the GHA)


the only thing starving my nitrates and phosphates out did was hurt my coral