Sea Hare (Eats Hair Algae)

Sea Hares are a popular choice among reef-aquarists for eliminating a wide variety of algae species from the home aquarium. These delicate animals are closely related to nudibranchs and share many of the same features, including a large muscular foot for locomotion, small rasping teeth for scraping algae, and the lack of an external shell. Sea hares can be quite voracious, removing large swaths of nuisance algae from rock and glasswork in a matter of days, depending on tank size. Unfortunately, sea hares can sometimes be TOO efficient at clearing the algae out of an aquarium and starve themselves unless supplemented with offerings of various dried seaweed species anchored to a surface for easy access. In extremely rare instances of stress, sea hares can produce an ink-like substance as a defense mechanism; This ink is toxic to many other reef inhabitants and if observed, should be removed immediately via a large water change.