It's weird but they seem to eventually get there and meet their fate. I had seahares that would go on the powerhead intake strainers all the time to no ill effect. And yet, a year in or so, would meet their match on a powerhead intake. Why would it be OK sometimes and not others?
The hands-down best trick I've found for problem algae is boiling water. Squirt some on the algae (pumps and powerheads off for this), it disintegrates within a couple days. Works for valonia too it would seem.
I've got a seahare right now that I was hoping would go after some bryopsis I've got growing on some clam shells. I'm not going to try the boiling water trick on my clams.
But alas, the seahare is not going after it. Sometimes they are a silver bullet for filamentous algae .... but apparently not always.
The longest lived seahares I had were ones that I was able to train onto offered food (like broken up algae wafers). I had to hold the food right in front of them though. Otherwise they just walk on by. They're not the brightest tack in the toolbox.
But once onto that, they took a liking to nori (which I feed everyday for my fish anyhow). Those were the ones that lived the longest, the longest I ever had was around 2 years or so. The ones that never did take to offered food though, never lasted more than a couple of months for me.
Anyhow I just share this last info in the hopes it's helpful to someone. My $0.02 basically. And that, coupled with two pennies .. gives you .. um .. not quite enough for a double-double at Timmies.
But hey, I offer it nonetheless.
