Sea hare only tank?

[ladyfsu]

Hey, I'm on vacation in Destin, FL right now and my 5 yr old and I have found about 10 sea hares in a day along the sea weed in the Gulf (picking up seaweed in the water and shaking it in water in a bucket...hundreds of critters). At my school, I have different types of tanks for my students and I would love to have many of these cool guys. The largest is the size of a penny; the smallest is smaller than an eraser on a pencil.

Do you think I could make a sea hare tank if I fill it with macro algae kinda like a sea horse tank (actually, can the 2 survive together?). Is there something I can feed it routinely to get them to live like nori?

Kind of funny, most people who live here have never seen them but after we found 1 in the seaweed, we seem to keep finding them non-stop. Thx.

 

[Jeffrey Porter]

they need a lot of algae but i can't remember which one. i kept a couple for about 2 weeks but had to put them back overboard because of starvation. also if they are scared they release a purple ink into the water. i think it is a bit toxic and may clog up filters. if you lived by the sea you could just rotate them on a weekly basis, but i don't know about longterm.

 

[ladyfsu]

Thx...will try. They are at school in a dirty tank at the moment and doing a good job cleaning it up. They are very small. I think the big one (size of a quarter) will stay in my son's 30 gallon tank that he puts things he finds at the beach. There is enough hair algae in there to keep him happy for a while.

The others...they are in a VERY algae filled fuge and then a 55-gallon tank that is being over-run with algae over the summer at school. No other things of much are in these tanks. If/when they seem to have cleaned it up, I'll return them to the sea except one per tank and hope that will work. Trial and error...and really really cool to watch. (I think the iodine they release is relatively non-toxic by such small guys in a big tank...only one squirted any out yet and that was at the beach...me is hopeful anyways).

So far they like the hair algae and the green film stuff on my fuge.

 

[iCam]

I wouldn't return them. There's always the risk of introducing something bad into the water.

A lot of people are usually on the lookout for sea hares, so if you could find other hobbyists in the area to give them to, that would be great on both ends.

As far as the ink,I had a fairly large one that got stuck to an intake and inked. Besides my skimmer going crazy all night, nothing in the tank seemed harmed.