Seahare Question

[KUDA]

Is any species of seahare available in the aquarium trade's ink toxic? My local fish store had one and he said that if it died, my tank would crash.

 

[iCam]

I had a seahare and it did ink once when it got too close to an intake.

I ended up having to stay up really late dumping the skimmer cup to keep it from overflowing with purple skimmate, but nothing in the tank even seemed stressed out.

 

[tangyreefer05]

Re: Seahare Question

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10106377#post10106377 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by KUDA
Is any species of seahare available in the aquarium trade's ink toxic?

Yes

 

[Freed]

I had several die with no effects at all.

 

[greenbean36191]

None of their ink is toxic. All it does is overload the senses of their predators and confuse them. In addition, not all species can even produce ink and those that can only do it when they have red algae to feed on since they need it to produce the ink.

 

[plancton]

They are really good for all kinds of algae but get stuck on pumps and die, and believe me is the most discusting experience to get them out.

 

[tangyreefer05]

The dye is toxic and can cause problems if not chemically filtered out.

 

[greenbean36191]

About 7% of the ink is pee, which is the only toxic component. The rest is a soup of amino acids and their derivatives, primarily taurine which is one of the major ingredients in Red Bull and other energy drinks. Basically it floods the predators taste/smell receptors with a signal of food, so they're distracted by licking their chops while the slug gets away.

See: Kicklighter CE, Shabani S, Johnson PM, Derby CD (2005) Sea Hares Use Novel Antipredatory Chemical Defenses. Current Biology 15(6):549-554.

In the past people working under the presumption that the ink was toxic tried to establish LD50s for it but couldn't because its so weakly toxic. About the only way to kill animals with the ink is to allow it to stay in such high concentrations that it literally suffocates them by coating their gills.

 

[KUDA]

Thanks for the info!!!