Anyone heard of Sea Rabbit?

[hhlhhl92]

I am fighting a war with hairy green algae. Someone told me that Sea Rabbits are good at cleaning the algae. Is it true? How does it look like?

 

[jgoodrich71]

Not a sea rabbit, but sea hares are supposed to be good. But I have no experience.

 

[Norboo]

Each sea hare is both male and female, but they still need to mate. Dozens pile up for sea hare orgies. They mate in lines and circles: each is male to the one in front and female to the one behind, so each is both a mother and a father. Sea hares may lay up to eighty million eggs apiece. But most of these mother-fathers' eggs are eaten by predators.



Diet algae and eelgrass

Size up to 16 inches (40.6 cm), 30 pounds (13.6 kg)

Range Northern California to Gulf of California

Relatives sea slugs and marine snails; phylum Mollusca, class Gastropoda

Conservation Notes Many kinds of plants, birds, fish, shellfish and other animals depend on the special mix of fresh and salt water found in sloughs and estuaries. When we protect wetlands against development, we protect the homes of many animals.

Cool Facts When threatened by predators, sea hares release a dark purple fluid in defense. The ink gets its purple color from a pigment in the red algae that makes up part of the sea hare's diet.

Sea hares can't see like we do; their simple eyes can only tell light from dark.

 

[hhlhhl92]

A big thank you to both jgoodrich and Norboo.
Is it hard to keep please? Anything I have to pay attention about?

 

[ficklefins]

I haven't owned one myself but from what I have read they are hard to keep because of their diet. This is because they eat a lot of algae and unless you are able to suppoly a good amount of nori on a daily basis I would stay away.

I have seen one of these guys at a LFS and I was totally caught off guard when I saw a Live Rock move. This guy was huge! Probably the size of a hamster or more. I can only imagine how much algae a hare that size would eat!

 

[iCam]

I had one. Yes, they are good at eating certain algae, but that's only part of the solution. Water quality issues still need to to taken care of so that the algae won't thrive in the first place.

If you get one, make sure you have someone that you can give/sell it to when you run out of algae for it to eat. Mine only inked once when it got too close to a powerhead intake,but the skimmer pulled it out rather quickly. I had to stay up extra late to make sure the skimmer cup wasn't going to overflow purple foam on the floor, though.

 

[hhlhhl92]

Thank you all for the info. You are very helpful.