Black sea cucumber not eating help

[rowenaad]

Hi my cuke is hiding under a rock and not eating/moving for month and shrank a lot in size. I moved it out from its hiding spot yesterday and it finds a different rock to hide. I have this cuke for over a year and half. About 8 month ago, I have cleaned out the tank for new sand (medium size which i think is the same size as before) and new rock. im not sure if this clean sandbed phase make it giving up on food but my sandbed is pretty dirty now and my nassarius snail from 2 years ago is still alive shows there is at least something to eat. This cuke has been hiding/not moving for a few month but it did eat a bit at its hiding spot at the beginning as i see the sand pile, so i thought that might be fine. But now i realised i didnt see its sand pile for a long while and pulled it out from the rock and it shrank almost in half and went to hide almost instantly. What can i do to make it eat again?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

What food have you been offering it?

 

[rowenaad]

What food have you been offering it?

Sand? but I feed the tank pellets, flakes, frozen mysis/brine shrimp, and phyto

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Sand? but I feed the tank pellets, flakes, frozen mysis/brine shrimp, and phyto

As long as enough of that is making it to the bottom for the cucumber to sift from the sand, it should be alright; given that it has been hiding and not moving or eating, though, I'd be inclined to think it's not getting enough available to eat (though I may well be wrong).

The quote below has some good info for sand sifting cuke feeding, but basically as long as the food makes it to the sandbed (either in it or on it) and is relatively appropriately sized for the cuke, it should pretty much eat whatever:

With regards to the sediment feeding cucumbers, as mentioned, you can ghost feed the tank and they'll do just fine on that. For example, the Chocolate Chip Sea Cucumber (Isostichopus badionotus) has been bred in captivity on the following diets*:
"Two feeding protocols were tested: In the first year, the broodstock were fed with commercial tilapia and rabbit feed which was ground, supplemented with Spirulina powder, and blended with disinfected beach sand (30g food/kg sand). In the second year, the food was changed to a mixture of ground Ulva sp., Sargassum sp., and Macrocystis sp. meals (Baja Kelp, Ensenanada, B.C., Mexico) blended with disinfected beach sand (30g algae mixture/kg sand). The food was changed every third day to prevent fungus formation."

I don't remember the other species I've looked at at the moment, but, generally speaking, sand sifting sea cucumbers are not picky about what they eat (though the food likely needs to be relatively decently sized so as to fit in with the sediment they're sifting - for example, the food they fed to the juvenile sea cucumbers when they reached 3 cm in the study above was sieved 55 at microns). Some easy foods you could offer that should work even for smaller cucumber species would be things like TDO Chromaboost Type A and Spirulina powder like used in the study I referenced.

I've seen a removable dish of sand mixed with food used successfully in sea cucumber aquaculture,

Edit: The study referenced in the quote above:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jwas.12061

 

[rowenaad]

As long as enough of that is making it to the bottom for the cucumber to sift from the sand, it should be alright; given that it has been hiding and not moving or eating, though, I'd be inclined to think it's not getting enough available to eat (though I may well be wrong).

The quote below has some good info for sand sifting cuke feeding, but basically as long as the food makes it to the sandbed (either in it or on it) and is relatively appropriately sized for the cuke, it should pretty much eat whatever:


Edit: The study referenced in the quote above:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jwas.12061

Thanks. I think there was a time theres little to no food when I restarted the tank with new sand and its crawling all over the rock, but there are adundant now and its still not even trying to eat

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Thanks. I think there was a time theres little to no food when I restarted the tank with new sand and its crawling all over the rock, but there are adundant now and its still not even trying to eat

Is it possible that it's just eating at night and making a home in the rock now?

If not, then hopefully someone with some ideas to help get it eating again will come along.

 

[rowenaad]

Is it possible that it's just eating at night and making a home in the rock now?

Thats what I thought but looking at its size now I dont think so anymore. And i dont see any sand pellet/sand pile at all.

 

[rowenaad]

bump