Sea hair slug?

[cantfindnemo]

A friend of my pruchased a sea hair slug for her tank because she had a huge hair algae break out, well the slug did its job and the tank is now clear of the algae. Ok so she was going to take it back to the LFS but she lent it to me first because I have a couple of patches that could be taken care of and after that I was going to take it back to my LFS.

My question is I have heard that if it gets stressed out it will let out some ink and kill my fish and so on. But the book I have which has been pretty reliable for me up to now says that the ink that the hair slug release has not been proven to be toxic to any fish or coral?

So have any of you actualy experienced this ink toxin and if so why do you think it happened and what did it do to your tank?

here is the book I got the info from I am pretty sure alot of you have the same one but on fish.
http://www.petsolutions.com/Pocket+Expert+Guide+to+Marine+Invertebrates-I-81208766-I-C-12-C-.aspx

[dj synystr]

if you run carbon you hsould be fine. i have 3 in my system. one in main, onein refugium, one in prop tankk all off of the same sump. one even died a few months ago and i lost nothing as far as other tank mates.

[cantfindnemo]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7545492#post7545492 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dj synystr
if you run carbon you hsould be fine. i have 3 in my system. one in main, onein refugium, one in prop tankk all off of the same sump. one even died a few months ago and i lost nothing as far as other tank mates.

Did ink come out of him? I run carbon but only on the weekend not all the time should I run it all the time when he is in there? How does carbon change the situation?

[rekn]

they have a slime discharge and as far as im aware its nontoxic.


they only slime if stressed or injured.

[cantfindnemo]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7545696#post7545696 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rekn
they have a slime discharge and as far as im aware its nontoxic.


they only slime if stressed or injured.

have you heard the samething that I have about it being toxic?

[dj synystr]

idk if it "inked" but i believe he was right about it sliming sea apples usually ink but i even had one of those at one time and it died and i had no problems. carbon helps clean out the toxins in the water. and why not run carbon 24/7?

[cantfindnemo]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7545710#post7545710 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dj synystr
idk if it "inked" but i believe he was right about it sliming sea apples usually ink but i even had one of those at one time and it died and i had no problems. carbon helps clean out the toxins in the water. and why not run carbon 24/7?

I don't run carbon 24/7 only because I don't have a place for it right now I am still seting up my sump but for right now I am puting it in my overflow box but eventualy I will run it all the time.

[ANNIESREEF]

I have one that was a hitchhiker. At the time I didn't know what it was so I filled a bowl of tank water and took him out of the tank til I could get a positive id. He inked when I pulled him off and it did not hurt anything in my tank & I dont have anything in my small tank to run carbon in.
He is still alive and well with a nickname of "Shrek". He eats all the green algae not just hair algae. quite benificial IME. I would dare to say it has been with me for about 10 months now.

[futrtrubl]

Sea apples are very different from sea hares. The first is a sea cucumber (echinoderm) the other is a mollusc. While the sea hares down here don't have a toxic ink (anemones and fish showed no preference between diced sea hair or diced sea hare marinated in its own ink), some may.

Edward

[chefb_5]

I have just had my first encounter with the sea hair inking. I was getting rid of it becuse it ate all my alge, so I tryed to get it off the bottom and it inked 4 times befor he let me get him. He hunkers down under the sand and stick to the bottom of the glass. I had to get him to unstick, so for making him mad he inked 4 times befor I could bag him up. so far nothing has happend. it's been 4hrs since.

[BigAl2007]

I've had several Sea hare and even had one "Ink" in a 10g tank with no ill effects.My understanding is that unless the tank is fairly unstable most of our REEF filtration systems will take care of the "Ink" in a matter of a few hours.

I think all Sea hare have the ability to "Ink" but not sure which ones are for sure "Toxic"

Here's a pic of one "Inking"
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/Aplysia_californica.jpg/200px-Aplysia_californica.jpg