Thinking of Getting a Sea Hare

[tapmorf]

Hair algae seemed to have bloomed since my light upgrade from 4x54w to 6x54w T5s.
I have done my scheduled water changes and all levels are fine.
So I was thinking of getting a sea hare to help clean up my rocks.
What is everyone's experience with them any warnings about them ?
Do you think a mystery wrasse would harass it ?
Are they toxic if they die for some reason ?

 

[iani]

Get a small tang or foxface/rabbit fish for now. It will grow into your upgraded tank when you get that set up.

 

[tuberider]

I agree with Ian, Sea Hares are hit and miss, they generally don't like reef tanks because of the amount of flow, either they get blown around the tank, aor they get stuck to a powerhead or even the overflow.

 

[bayareaquarist]

Look for a "pimp my sea hare" style thread..there's usually one floating around...

-the popular types of sea hares you'll find (Aplysia) do not contain any toxins either...they all have different tastes for algae too...

 

[CookieJar]

I 3rd the small foxface idea. Once with the black spots supposably stay a little smaller than non-spot ones. I had a seahare that climbed over green algae and he disappeared. the foxface I had wiped out all algae w/i 1 month.

 

[Gomer]

and when the algae is gone, do you do you feed them "veggies"? I've seen an LFS literally put lettuce into a tank before.

 

[CookieJar]

funny thing is my foxface never eats nori when I put it in the tank, he eats all the other meaty foods just as aggressively as any other fish I have. Feeding them is no problem when there's no more algae.

 

[chicken]

Tapmorf, Are you running GFO in your tank? If not I would highly recommend it as I suspect there are trace amounts of PO4 in the tank and the algae is using it up as quick as its released. So your tests might show 0 but its still there.

 

[tapmorf]

I recently added a lawnmower blenny and a Virgate Rabbitfish. I thought I would try a different rabbitfish besides the Foxface. They are slowly working on the algae. I do notice the blenny's belly is huge now.
[/quote][quote author=iani link=topic=5098.msg62724#msg62724 date=1226006913]
Get a small tang or foxface/rabbit fish for now. It will grow into your upgraded tank when you get that set up.
[/quote]

What is GFO ?
[quote author=chicken link=topic=5098.msg62802#msg62802 date=1226030894]
Tapmorf, Are you running GFO in your tank? If not I would highly recommend it as I suspect there are trace amounts of PO4 in the tank and the algae is using it up as quick as its released. So your tests might show 0 but its still there.

 

[chicken]

Granular Ferric Oxide aka Phosphate remover. Phosban, Rowaphos, etc. If you dont have a small phosphate reactor I would setup one and put some GFO in it. I had some hair algae I was battling in my SPS system even though my phosphate tests showed 0. As soon as I setup my reactor again it just melted away within a few days.

 

[tapmorf]

I actually am running phosphate remove, Seachem brand media. Hopefully it will clear up soon. I will try to do more frequent changing of the media to see if that helps. Thanks.

 

[chicken]

Are you using the SeaChem PhosGuard stuff? If you are next time make sure to pick up a phosphate remover that is a GFO type. PhosGuard is an aluminum oxide type remove (it will look white, where the GFO ones look rust colored). The problem with the aluminum oxide products is they don't remove Phosphate as good as GFO, don't last as long and can possibly leach aluminum back into the water.

Try out Two Little Fishies Phosban, ROWAPhos, Salifert Phosphate Killer or Warner Marine PHOSaR. They are all GFO based phosphate removers and pretty much all near the same quality. I have been using the PHOSaR (since its cheap in comparision to the others) for the last 6 months and have been happy with it. Just make sure to follow the instructions on what ever product you use. All of the products typically need to be used in a reactor for best performance (like the Two Little Fishies Phosban reactor) and they need to be rinsed before use as there will be a lot of rust colored dust that comes off from the media. I typically do not rinse my media before use. I just fill up the reactor with new media and then turn the pump on and just dump the first gallon or two of water run through it into a bucket I dump down the drain. Good luck!

 

[Vincerama2]

I asked the guys at Aquatic Gallery about hair algae, they said a sea hare would clean it right up. The danger being that they might "ink" if scared. Also, they said that they'd take the hare back after my algae was gone for store credit.

I decided to try and tackle the cause of my algae first (mostly excessive flake food feeding). I'm also trying to dose vodka, since it's a cheap experiment.

My focus on reducing excess nutrients involves;
1) Reducing feedings from once a day with flake food to once every 2 days with froxen mysys
2) Vodka dosing (why not, as long as I don't od the tank, it's an interesting theory!)
3) more water changes
4) Chaeto in refugium.

V

 

[bayareaquarist]

You could always turn the lights off for a few days too, provided you don't have any extra sensitive inhabitants!

IMHO vodka is a tricky method of nutrient exportation...make sure you do your research and remove any colonies you don't have the luxury of losing~!

2 cents -don't mean to sound condescending!

-Matt

 

[Vincerama2]

I had tried going a day without the lights, but I have some suffering RBTAs in there at the momebt (hot pink instead of read... been like that for months) and I decided against other things suffering.

I'm doing the vodka dose thing according to a "Reefkeeping" article. I am no where near pushing the limit of dose and am maintaining a conservative vodka dose. From what I've read, the vodka simply acts as a source of carbon for bacteria that could conceivably process more N and P, but lack the C to do so. I haven't noticed any ill effects so I'll maintain current dosage.

I manually picked out ALOT of hair algae, and I'm trying to be smart about the algae problem, by solving the problem rather than masking the symptoms.

A LFS guy mentioned that "flake food is so highly processed that once it hits the water and goes uneatern, it's basically ready to enter the water column as dissolved organics, but whole foods like frozen mysis, if not eaten will stick around for a while and be eaten by scavenger" so I'm thinking that is helping me out.

Also, I had chaeto in my sump, but I had it in a chamber with low light, I've moved it to a higher light area so taht it can consume more nutrients.

Also, I'm cleaning my skimmer more than once a month now...basically, I know that a neglected tank is an ugly tank, and an ugly tank soon becomes a neglected tank...so my approach is to be more proactive about it.

V

 

[tapmorf]

Vince,

I agree, I want to get to the bottom of my algae bloom and not just mask it. I have been manually removing as well. I do about 10g water change every week, along with that I always clean out the skimmer, wipe the neck out of gunk, replace phosban, and carbon. I have not been dosing at all (Phyto, Zooplankton, blah blah).

This may be part of the problem: About a month ago, I went from a 4x54w to 6x54w and on top of that I started to use flake food as well. I have not used flake food in the last week, and observe if that helps. I remember when I first setup the tank about a year ago, I had a similar green hair bloom. I kept up with my waterchanges, manual removal and did all the above described maintenance for equipment and eventually it all cleared up.

 

[bayareaquarist]

I know that a neglected tank is an ugly tank, and an ugly tank soon becomes a neglected tank

I like that~!

When it comes to Nutrient export and the differentiating methods its a matter of "tuning" in your tank to the method and converting from what ever method your tank had established.
Are you running your reactor at the same time you dose vodka?? It's a genius method that for the most part is very safe to experiment with so please do post your findings~!