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pandafishowner
01-30-2008, 02:34 AM
Anyone have a sea hare we can borrow for a bit? We've been fighting a hair algae problem for quite awhile. We're doing our best to remove it ourselves but we don't want to lose all our mushrooms either.

If anyone has one we can borrow, could you let me know? We called a few places and nobody had any in stock. Gold's is supposed to get some next week, but we don't really want to wait unless absolutely necessary. We've got 20 or so crabs, half a dozen turbo snails, a tuxedo urchin, and none of them are touching the rocks that are really covered in hair algae. It's frustrating.

We live in the SE and have no vehicle, so if you have one we can borrow and you can deliver we'll pay you extra.

Please let me know.

Thanks.

likwid
01-30-2008, 03:05 AM
Elite and Wai's always has them in stock in Calgary.

dsaundry
01-30-2008, 03:45 AM
:biggrin: If you were close I would say "No Problem" But just FYI Sea Hares are usually fairly inexpensive, but before you introduce one in your tank you better make sure that all your filter and pump intakes are covered with sponge or a filter bag..The Sea Hares are quite prone to getting sucked into them and then they can "squirt" contaminating your tank.{ask my son about that} They are however one of the greatest little hair algae munchers I have ever seen. One question. Why so much hair algae? Have you checked your phosphates? Remember even if your tank shows no evidence of phosphates it could be absorbed by rock and algae. How often do you do water changes? I had a hair algae issue in my 72g and between the Sea Hare and some Rowaphos {and more frequent water changes} The hair algae is pretty much extinct..Yay!!

pandafishowner
01-30-2008, 04:16 AM
When I called the fish stores today, none said they had them in stock. I keep getting told within the next week or two. But then again we have no way of getting to most of the stores either and anything we buy will likely freeze on the way back home. Not to mention we don't want to keep one for good, just until we get rid of the hair algae.

We've had our water tested for everything. Everything is within normal ranges, however in December we went from 20 watts to 120watts of lighting. That's what's been suggested most often as our problem.

We replace that every few months as the box says. When we had the 20g setup, we did 5g water changes weekly, water top offs every other day or so. We switched to my 29g this weekend.

I'm assuming that sea hares are similar to snails and can slither their way up tank walls? If they can, we can easily cover our filter and air pumps. :)

dsaundry
01-30-2008, 04:30 AM
I understand you went up in lighting, I am not sure that would cause that much of a problem. As I stated before you still might have a phosphate issue as it can get absorbed by live rock. The extra light may have initiated a bloom but the problem may have already been there.I still would suggest Rowaphos or a similar replacement. Pick out as much of the algae as possible and see what happens. As for the Sea Hare, I am not to familiar with Calgary other than the Deerfoot trail, If your local pet stores get one in, couldn't you put it in an insulated container for transport? When they get stock of course. It might be a bit cold for shipping as I think I heard it was -40 or so. We were only at -10 so a bit warmer but I still wouldn't ship. I have a Ricordea order on hold until it warms up a bit. As for their description ...A slug sort of covers it..Ugly but in a way..Cute.:biggrin:

pandafishowner
01-30-2008, 04:44 AM
lol yeah, it's quite cold here. -40C weather right now. our closest LFS is Golds and as I said, they won't have any in stock until next week.

We've been manually removing hair algae for weeks. Since we (hub and I) rely on busses or walking, I'm worried that if we had to wait for a bus downtown or somewhere near another fish store, the sea hare might freeze anyway. That's how cold it is.

Bah, somehow my previous message is missing part of my post. Where it says "We replace that every few months" I was talking about the phosphate bags we use. On the box it says they're good for 3 months, we use them for 2 and then exchange them with a new one. We've been running them ever since we started up our SW tank.

dsaundry
01-30-2008, 05:05 AM
Well I guess I am stumped for now, Hopefully someone in your area will be able to lend a Hare your way..Try to keep warm...:biggrin: