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Yeah, very cool, but for me they've been short lived. Sure it ate algae, but nothing crazy, I mean its not going to eat it all. I think your LFS should be helping you find the reason for the algae instead of just trying to sell you a bandaid solution. Too much light, food, nitrates, phos...etc... Got any parameters to share?
If your LFS will rent it to you, Its a great way to go. But otherwise in a week or so all your algae will be gone and it will starve, die and pollute the crap outta your tank.
i love sea hares! i just got one for my seahorse tank since it just started to grow a bit of hair algae..he ate it all in a few days I then fed him green seaweed which is dry and you can buy in sheets...i either would feed him by hand or elastic it to a rock or shell. He is now currently living in my other 28 gal nano tank. I have had 4 sea hares in total and i found that the blue spotted ones were very short lived ( i've had two and both died in a few months). The hare i have now is all brown and slightly larger than the blue spotted hare. I've had one just like it a few years back and he lived almost a year before he got sucked up into a power head (I also was feeding that one the dried seaweed by hand)
Yes I agree with nbx. They are 'bandaids' for a bigger problem. Kinda like putting a bandaid on something that needs stiches. What you should do is:
1) Find the root of the problem. This will be excess nutrients such as Phosphates and Nitrates.
2) Reduce these levels with regular PWC's.
3) To hinder the algae growth cut the lighting time in half for a tank with coral and leave it off all together for a FOWLR tank.
I don't have any nitrates....how do you test for phosphates? maybe I need a better test kit......I'm going to be better about water changes
--Kelsey-- nice pics! I'll try the algae if I get one!
If you have an algae problem, you have nitrates. You won't see any nitrates on your tests because the algae is eating it all up. Same goes for phosphates. You need to be doing:
Frequent water changes.
Scrubbing the rock clean during PWC, sucking the algae out.
Reducing feedings.
Rinsing frozen food in RO water.
Reducing lighting period.
Running skimmer/phosban/carbon 24/7.
Sea hares are definitely not a long term solution. Cut your feedings down and keep up with water changes. I do 10% every 4 days. If you are overloaded with algae then get one and return it before he starves. I have had my green sea hare for 4 months now and for a time, he did get smaller(worried) he gained weight and seems to have found other types of algae to eat. At first he only ate green hair algae.