Is My Sea Hare Dying?

[stanleo]

The last several days my sea hare has been acting funny. His symptoms are, lethargic, has a lump on the right side about half way down the body, won't climb on the glass, spends a lot of time on his back, and when he does move it doesn't look like he is using his foot. He just kind of lets the current take him. I have seen him a couple times roll sideways across the tank. He ate a seaweed sheet yesterday and I have seen him grazing a few times on algae.

A couple weeks ago he did lay an egg clump and starting on Wednesday I started changing 2 gl of water daily in his 55gl tank and dosing vodka but I am pretty sure he started acting lethargic before that. Just now I see him on his back and rocking his head back and forth and running his mouth over his foot like he is licking it. I don't want to take him out yet in the hope that he is just sick and might pull through this. I am watching very closely for if he dies I want to remove him ASAP. Do you think I should just euthanize him? I don't want to jump the gun. His species is Aplysia Juliana.

The water tests come out fine with phosphates and nitrates being undetectable on my API kits. pH is 8.2, salinity is 1.025 and calcium, Mg and Alk are all withing the normal range. Nothing else in the tank is acting odd.

He are a couple pics to illustrate my point.

 

[AirFarceLive]

Im sorry to say this but my friend had a sea hare in his aquarium and it started doing this, few days later it was dead. But nothing is completely for sure, just hope for the best.

 

[BigTuna]

I am far from an expert (possibly the furtherest from it) but I thought I've read somewhere before that a sea hare has a very short life expectancy and its not uncommon for them to lay eggs when they know the end is near.  It is quite possible it has ran its course. I hope Im wrong.

 

[Donya]

Hard to tell what's going on lump-wise in the pics...is it possible it could have been injured (namely if something fell on it)? Also could easily be old age; the bodies can assume sort of odd shapes from time to time as they are slowing down. It's worth getting a bucket of tank water to isolate it for the final decline if you hold it in your hand underwater for a while and one of the following happens:
1. It remains rigid and sort of puckered looking with little movement or limited movement.
2. It is fairly floppy, deforms to the shape of your hand, and makes no major attempt to move beyond that.
A healthy sea hare will "wake up" after a bit and start wiggling about. Aplysia juliana is not supposed to be an inker if I recall right, but if I'm wrong on that or if the species guess was wrong, some individuals of inking species will do so rather a lot in their last moments.

 

[stanleo]

I took him in my hand and he squirmed a lot and tried to get away from so I take it that is a good sign, right? I put a seaweed sheet in there and he started eating and he is still pooping so maybe he is ok somewhat. This might be crazy but I can't remember if started acting like this before or after I put the first dose of vodka in. I wonder if that has something to do with it. I know they don't last long even when cared for properly.

I had my water tested with Salifert and nitrates were 2 ppm and phosphates were 0. Mg was 1360, cal was 480, and Alk was 8.5 so the parameters are good. I will just keep my eye on him a while longer and stop the vodka for a few days see what that does.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[AirFarceLive]

I took him in my hand and he squirmed a lot and tried to get away from so I take it that is a good sign, right? I put a seaweed sheet in there and he started eating and he is still pooping so maybe he is ok somewhat. This might be crazy but I can't remember if started acting like this before or after I put the first dose of vodka in. I wonder if that has something to do with it. I know they don't last long even when cared for properly.

I had my water tested with Salifert and nitrates were 2 ppm and phosphates were 0. Mg was 1360, cal was 480, and Alk was 8.5 so the parameters are good. I will just keep my eye on him a while longer and stop the vodka for a few days see what that does.

Thanks for the replies.

That ise definately a good sign, as I said before I'm not 100% sure, so keep your hopes up and all shoud go well.