sea hare

[commabc]

i put one in my tank the other day and what a machine he is! they are great for eating algae, if you can mind the poop. after a day of being in the tank he made his way over to the drain cap of my closed loop. he got stuck...bad! i tried to gently pull him off, it didn't work, i just got inked...twice! i had to end up pulling the drain cover off, and cutting it out. it was only his face that was actually stuck inside, or half of his face i guess. when i cut him out, his face was deformed and had looked bubbly and purlple/blueish. that was yesterday. i put him in the sand and he made his way to the front corner of the tank, stayed there for hours, then made his way to the edge of a few rocks, he was there all night, since then he has move a few inches along the sand but still beside the rock.(needless to say he is still poop'n) obviously he is really stressed out, i mean imagine if your face was being sucked on all day through a plastic drain cover. my main concern is that he might not be able to see well, maybe blind. the bubbles and swelling was on his eyes. the swelling has gone down now, but i'm concerned. do you think he will recover, and if he doesn't, do they release toxins if they die? thanks

 

[650-IS350]

I've had a couple of them... they all seem to get caught on pumps or what ever... best algae eating machine though.. they eat all sorts of algae except byprosis.

I might get me a baby one when I set up my 37 cube.

Ink is more irritant that anything else.. I doubt they would nuke a tank like a seaapple would.

 

[LeslieH]

Sea hares don't really see. Their eyes are very small and only capable of sensing light intensity. They locate their food by the underwater equivalent of smelling : detecting molecules carried in the water. That's what the tentacles & rhinophores are for. They also help the sea hare navigate through his world.

Sea hares aren't smart & they don't have a good grasp on things They're easily sucked into pumps, power heads, filters, whatever. They can survive much bigger injuries that what you describe.

I don't know if Delsol's right or not because my books contradict each other about toxicity of the ink. Some say it's toxic to fish others say it's not toxic at all or an irritant. A partial water change might be good insurance just in case.

This is a short explanation of sea hare head features:
http://www.seaslugforum.net/factsheet.cfm?base=aplyhead

 

[aninjaatemyshoe]

That website is easily one of the best information/picture sites I've ever seen on marine life (albeit a specific form of marine life). Very cool.

 

[greenbean36191]

Leslie, it was assumed for a long time that the ink was toxic since the animals squirt it when they're disturbed and attackers would typically leave them alone afterwards. People even tried to establish LD50s of it (which they couldn't).

It wasn't until about a year or two ago it was finally determined that the ink, and more importantly the opaline which gets squirted out with it, are basically just soups of amino acids that mimic the taste of food while also stimulating a flight and cleaning response in crustaceans. Pretty much they overload the senses of predators long enough for the slug to get away, but they don't cause any lasting harm. The most toxic thing in the secretions is ammonium, which only makes up ~6%.

 

[LeslieH]

Now that's interesting! Thanks, Mike.