Sea hare

DannieH42 · Post by **DannieH42** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 9:15 pm

I have seen these locally while diving. They are called Aplysia brasiliana. Has anyone ever kept one? They are realy cool to watch. I have been thinking about how cool it would be to set up a tank using only local species. While Diving around perdido pass many times and seen plenty of things that would look great in a tank.

Post by **snoopdog** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 10:30 am

Looks like a Nudibranch

DannieH42 · Post by **DannieH42** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 1:35 pm

They are closely related to nudibranchs. I have seen them several times while diving. Sometimes they crawl, sometimes they swim. When they swim they are very gracefull and very cool to watch. They get to be about 6 inches long. If I could provide a suitable enviroment for one I think it would be a very interesting addition to my tank.

Amphiprion · Post by **Amphiprion** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:37 pm

Sea hares are Anaspid sea slugs. Very closely, as Dannie said, to nudibranchs and other opisthobranchs. ONe thing about them in particular is that they need enormous amounts of a particular algae of their preference. As the pic shows, Aplysia brasiliana gets way too big for any aquarium and would be extremely short lived (at least shorter than an already-short life). Most species get far too large and are too specialized for our tanks. They also have the bad habit of "inking", releasing a violet colored dye that is potentially toxic (you can see some in the pics).

Post by **snoopdog** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:53 am

The diet is the main concern all Nudibranch have specific diets. Some eat soft coral, anemones, hair algea, hard coral and some they still have no idea what they eat. Since they have such a large apetite even lettuce Nudibranch die quickly. I could see one of these die very quickly, and I bet they eat that long seaweed you see washed up on shore. I can also imagine the mess one would make when it dies.