Sea hare died, cause?

[Reefkeepers Archive]

Anyway i had this dolabella sea hare for about a month now, came back from a week long vacation and found it dead. Very recently dead as it had not begun to decay. My tank has an extreme gha issue (assuming from overfeeding) so in the last two months I ONLY feed my two fish and the corals get leftover scraps of what the fish don't eat. Anyway I've noticed that an extremely large patch of algae had been cleared before it had died, as well as the fact that over the month I've had it, it's waste orifice and the area around it was continuing to become pale (brushed it off at first) but when I found it dead it's entire backside had become white. No3 is basically 0 (algae absorbs all of it before it can be registered on any kind of test) and same story with po4 at 0.03, LFS says it could have been from overeating and the pale backside could be from overuse of the anus due to excess waste. Can anyone verify this and if not what do you think could be a cause?

 

[Dburr1014]

I traded some frags for one of these guys. The gentleman I got it from had it for months. It died in my tank in about a month.

I know they are super sensitive with salanity changes and a 2 hour drip is what is recommended (from memory).

I'm guessing, completly guessing, that is possible my GHA wasn't on its menu. IDK.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

While I've heard that these can live for up to 6 years, their average reported lifespan is about 16 months;* given how short the average lifespan is, it's quite possible you just happened to get a specimen that was about to age out.

*Source (I can only find the article as a download, so I'll just list the name here):
Occurences of Wedge Sea Hare, Dolabella auricularia (Lightfoot, 1786) from Kayalpatinam, Gulf of Mannar, Tamil Nadu, India
The authors: S N Sethi, L Ranhith, & K Kannan

 

[sfin52]

It starved ot it was at the end of life. I imagine most of the really large ones are at end of life.

 

[djf91]

It seems about 9 in 10 of these last less than a month in aquariums from all of the posts I see. I think it could be dietary requirements not being properly met or maybe the species of GHA you have is toxic to them. I had one perish within 2 weeks time when I first set up my tank. It fed on the hair algae/chrysophytes/dinos that were covering my rocks but this concoction also seemed to make it sick. No other part of my cleanup crew would eat it either so I think that says something…

 

[littlefoxx]

Anyway i had this dolabella sea hare for about a month now, came back from a week long vacation and found it dead. Very recently dead as it had not begun to decay. My tank has an extreme gha issue (assuming from overfeeding) so in the last two months I ONLY feed my two fish and the corals get leftover scraps of what the fish don't eat. Anyway I've noticed that an extremely large patch of algae had been cleared before it had died, as well as the fact that over the month I've had it, it's waste orifice and the area around it was continuing to become pale (brushed it off at first) but when I found it dead it's entire backside had become white. No3 is basically 0 (algae absorbs all of it before it can be registered on any kind of test) and same story with po4 at 0.03, LFS says it could have been from overeating and the pale backside could be from overuse of the anus due to excess waste. Can anyone verify this and if not what do you think could be a cause?

These guys really only last a year, Ive had two. I love these guys a lot but they just dont do well in tanks

 

[djf91]

These guys really only last a year, Ive had two. I love these guys a lot but they just dont do well in tanks

I agree. They should not be recommended. It’s recommended to often that they be added to a one month old, cycling tank with a mat of god knows what on the rocks.

 

[littlefoxx]

I agree. They should not be recommended. It’s recommended to often that they be added to a one month old, cycling tank with a mat of god knows what on the rocks.

Yeah Ive had two, each died at or close to a year old. Got them when they were tiny too