Cucumber nuked my tank

[ScottF]

Here is an old video of it:

 

[ScottF]

Holothurid sea cucumbers are like box fish in that they can release toxins if severely stressed. Though I believe they are generally safe as long as they don't get mangled by a pump or powerhead like mine did.

Mine was originally in a 15 gallon nano and got itself tangled in the overflow comb several times with some visible abrasions without causing any issues. It killed all of the fish except for two gobies and some garden eels in a 90g tank when it got liquefied by my return pump.

 

[spsick]

I am not referring to spaghetti worms if that is what you are thinking. My medusa worm was:

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Echinodermata
Class:	Holothuroidea
Order:	Apodida
Family:	Synaptidae

Ahh ok so you’re just generically calling it a Medusa worm, understood.

That’s crazy I’ve never seen one like yours!

 

[ScottF]

Ahh ok so you’re just generically calling it a Medusa worm, understood.

That’s crazy I’ve never seen one like yours!

They are commonly referred to as Medusa worm. Some people also call Spaghetti worms Medusa worms.

https://reefs.com/magazine/aquarium-invertebrates-the-medusa-worms/

 

[littlefoxx]

My Apex was disconnected from my wifi today. So I power cycled it. This of course turned off everything plugged into the EB832 including my return pump for a few minutes. What I didn't notice was my beloved medusa worm getting sucked down one of my return nozzles as water siphoned into my sump. When the pump turned back on, it ground up the medusa worm (legless cucumber) a spit it back out into the tank.

At first I didn't know what the gunk was floating in the tank or where it came from. Then I noticed my Morish Idol laying in the sand. Didn''t take long to figure out what happened. I caught the fish that weren't already dead and put them in a 5 gallon bucket of clean salt water with an air stone. My orange spot rabbitfish is still barely holding on. As is one of my purple tangs, one of my mocha storm clowns and a citron goby. I doubt that they will make it to morning though.

The rest of the fish are dead. Midas blenny, purple tang, morish idol, circus goby... So far the snails seem OK. As does the urchin. The leather corals have their polyps out and the BTAs look normal. Mostly softies in this tank. Thank god this wasn't my big tank. I saw two out of three garden eels peeking out of the sand. I have hope for them.

I did a 90% water change and put a giant bag of carbon across the baffle in my sump in front of the return pump chamber. Is there anything else I can do?

I had to replace sand and bleach my rocks and re cycle the whole tank to get it completely out when my cucumber decided to meet its maker in a return pump. Im sorry for the loss, those things are horrible!

 

[PharmrJohn]

Down town Julie Brown was a MTV VJ in the 80's. Back when MTV was mostly music videos.

Oh yes!! She was! I remember MTV. I think I was High School when that rolled out!

 

[ScottF]

I had to replace sand and bleach my rocks and re cycle the whole tank to get it completely out when my cucumber decided to meet its maker in a return pump. Im sorry for the loss, those things are horrible!

Hopefully I don't have to go that far. The left half of the tank has like seven inches of sand for the Garden Eels. So far, everything that survived that night is doing well. I changed out most of the water and I'm running a ton of carbon.

One positive is that with no fish swimming around, the garden eels are extending further out of the sand.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Such a terrible, terrible tragedy! May I assume you will never be buying another Cucumber?!?!

 

[ScottF]

Such a terrible, terrible tragedy! May I assume you will never be buying another Cucumber?!?!

Probably not. I loved that dang thing, but it was always trying to get into trouble. I thought I had it baby proofed. I just didn't consider it getting sucked down a return nozzle when the pump turned off.

It was a super interesting creature. I've been trying to get an emperor shrimp for it for the past year, but was never able to find one.

Here is a cool video of someone else's Medusa worm/Emperor shrimp pairing. My cucumber was much darker and less transparent than this one.

 

[ScottF]

I wanted to give a follow up on this. I did the initial very large (80% - 90%) water change. I've run a ton of carbon. I've skimmed aggressively. I let the tank run like this for a few weeks with just the citron goby and circus goby that survived and of course all of the inverts.

The first fish that died was my morish idol. It was dead almost immediately. So I decided to start repopulating the tank with a morish idol as a "canary in the coal mine".

I added the new morish idol to that tank a couple of weeks ago and it's been completely fine. The new idol is a bit of an ******. He keeps chomping off tentacles from my BTAs, but there doesn't seem to be any residual toxins.