Sea hares and their diet

[BigShot]

Sorry, forgot to add this one:
With regards to the sea hares, will they only eat hair algae ? I would add another one as the one I have is doing a tremendous job, but I do not want them to starve if the hair algae is gone.

Thank you,
Luke

[Fredfish]

Personally, I would hold off on putting another into your tank. As far as I know, all sea hares are algae eaters. I recall from reading that some will even eat cyano. I suspect diet is very much species dependant.

There is a very good Australian seaslug site that you can search for this species and it may give you some diet info. Unfortuanely I don't have a link any more. Maybe someone else here does.

I did a lot of searching a year ago on algae eating slugs and did not find a lot of diet related info. Many species, not much research done yet. sigh...

Fred.

[RicksReefs]

i have an atlantic sea hare (Aplysia dactylomela) it eats
just about any algae offered. i now feed it Ulva algae.

[Oddjob]

How about Maidens hair (Chlorodesmis I think)? I've been trying to get something to eat this in my tank, and so far nothing will touch it.

[rshimek]

Hi,

Fred's response is right on the target. [thanks]

The diet and acceptable foods for these animals is very much species dependent. Most of them, by the way, are not good reef aquarium animals, as they are generally "too fragile" for reef aquaria and prefer low current situations, as well as areas with out many fish.

Luke, I would very much advise against getting another one. That would likely result in the algae getting eaten faster, but the net result would then be that there would be two animals that might well starve when it is gone rather than just one.

[Freed]

I had three in my 180 up until last week. I had to put one in my 60 gallon because hair was taking hold down there again. The three in the 180 completely devoured 90% of the hair in there in about 2 months time and there was alot of it, trust me. They have eaten red slime(?) and I also fee them Seaweed Selects every once in a while. Mine are from Bali and are called the Dolabella Sea Hares. I got them from www.blowfishaquatics.com back in April. I will be putting one back in my 20QT tomorrow from the 180 to take care of the hair that has regrown.