Sea Hare dieing

[sphinx105]

Two weeks ago we bought a sea hare for our 35 gal to control the hair algae. It was doing well until last night when I got home it was dead. It was sitting on a rock with its back was split open about 1/3 of the way to its tail.

About 2 years ago we put a sea hare in out nano and it lived for about a month an then it too was found split open down the back. I suspected the coral banded shrimp for that loss as it picks on everything in the nano.

In the 35 we have 1 emerald crab, 1 peppermint shrimp, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 pin cushion urchin, 1 maroon clown, 1 coral beauty, and one peppermint goby, about a dozed hermits and assorted snails, assorted zoos and stalk of xenia. None of these are very aggressive, so unless there is more going on in the tank when I am not home than I know about I don't see what could have attacked the sea hare.

Is there other causes of the sea hares splitting open?

They are so ugly that they are cure and do go a good job of keeping the hair algae under control, I hate to buy another one to see it die too.

We did a 20% water change last Sunday as we do every two weeks. We are not adding any supplements to the tank except iodine and part A&B very rarely.

Water parameters in the tank are:

SG 1.023
Temp 78
Ph 8.2
Ammonia none - per the test kit
Nitrate none - per the test kit
Nitrite none - per the test kit

Any thoughts?

 

[greenbean36191]

Is there other causes of the sea hares splitting open?

Yep. That's how they're born. They have two parapodia with a slit in the middle. When they're overlapping the slit just looks like two holes.

As for the loss of the animals, these guys eat a looot of algae and most of them tend to be fairly specific as to which algae they'll eat.

Your salinity and temp are also on the low side. Salinity should be around 1.026 and the temp should be closer to 82. Also, there's no need to dose iodine since none of the animals we keep have any known need for dissolved iodine and it can be toxic if overdosed.