Subliminal
12-20-2007, 12:51 PM
As per Miss Grins request, I'm starting a convo about Sea Hares.
Anyone else have any of these guys?
From about the second month up until the fifth month of my 29g's life I had a serious hair algae problem. I did manual removal and that helped. I switched to RO/DI and that started to help, but I knew it'd be a long road. Someone gave me a small urchin who I've never seen eat anything. I went to a local fish store and someone suggested a sea hare.
Upon looking in the tank where said sea hares resided, I noticed that there were about 5 of them. 4 were huge, the size of a toilet paper roll (for lack of better reference...was going to go with deli pickle, but thought that might be too regional), but one was about an inch and a half long (couldn't think of a good analogy...ha).
So, I bought it. I think it was like $6.
Well, I don't know if it ate any of my hair algae, but it's almost always on the glass eating diatoms or whatever happen to grow in places I can't clean (like on the side where all my xenia is growing up the glass).
He's kind of a cute little guy, despite his drab gray/brown/green color. His face kind of looks like that of a hippopotamus with his shrek like ear things.
As you can tell, I'm getting pretty technical here with my talk of toilet paper rolls, deli pickles and 'ear things'.
I've heard that they can ink when threatened, but I think my tank is pretty peaceful, and I've never seen such a thing happen. He's grown to almost 2 inches in the few months I've had him, and been a model citizen.
Every now and again I see him moving around on the rocks, too, but more so on the glass.
Now, all that being said, I'd definitely say he's been a good addition to my tank, and have really nothing bad to say about him.
I don't think I'd buy one strictly to clean your tank, but more for diversity of livestock.
If you look on liveaquaria.com it talks of supplemental feedings and a need for calupera. It mentions that they are expert only and they need shade from the light. I haven't noticed any of this, but mine also doesn't really look like the one in their picture.
Soooo...yeah.
Sorry for the long post.:lipssealedsmilie:
Anyone else have any of these guys?
From about the second month up until the fifth month of my 29g's life I had a serious hair algae problem. I did manual removal and that helped. I switched to RO/DI and that started to help, but I knew it'd be a long road. Someone gave me a small urchin who I've never seen eat anything. I went to a local fish store and someone suggested a sea hare.
Upon looking in the tank where said sea hares resided, I noticed that there were about 5 of them. 4 were huge, the size of a toilet paper roll (for lack of better reference...was going to go with deli pickle, but thought that might be too regional), but one was about an inch and a half long (couldn't think of a good analogy...ha).
So, I bought it. I think it was like $6.
Well, I don't know if it ate any of my hair algae, but it's almost always on the glass eating diatoms or whatever happen to grow in places I can't clean (like on the side where all my xenia is growing up the glass).
He's kind of a cute little guy, despite his drab gray/brown/green color. His face kind of looks like that of a hippopotamus with his shrek like ear things.
As you can tell, I'm getting pretty technical here with my talk of toilet paper rolls, deli pickles and 'ear things'.
I've heard that they can ink when threatened, but I think my tank is pretty peaceful, and I've never seen such a thing happen. He's grown to almost 2 inches in the few months I've had him, and been a model citizen.
Every now and again I see him moving around on the rocks, too, but more so on the glass.
Now, all that being said, I'd definitely say he's been a good addition to my tank, and have really nothing bad to say about him.
I don't think I'd buy one strictly to clean your tank, but more for diversity of livestock.
If you look on liveaquaria.com it talks of supplemental feedings and a need for calupera. It mentions that they are expert only and they need shade from the light. I haven't noticed any of this, but mine also doesn't really look like the one in their picture.
Soooo...yeah.
Sorry for the long post.:lipssealedsmilie: