cucumber question

TwentyfiveCents · Dec 24, 2020

So have a tiger tail and spiny sea cucumber in my 90 gal display with assortment of SPS/LPS/clams/softy....I was talking to my LFS guy and he suggested I remove them because if one dies it will just bomb the tank. Had them for about 3 months now and wanted to know how often does that actually happen in a well maintained reef tank Tank? Increased my feeding to help the spiny sea cucumber with more available food by feeding phyto and reef blizzard plus I try to keep my phosphate around 20-30 PPB using hanna URL

Tired · Dec 24, 2020

Do you have a picture of the spiny sea cucumber? Is it a filter-feeder? Filter-feeding cucumbers need daily spot-feeding to have any chance of surviving, and still tend to very slowly starve. The problem with them is that they don't show they're starving until they're basically dead, and it can take months for them to go downhill that far. There's a reason you don't really see them being kept long-term.

The tiger tail probably has a better chance, I know people keep those successfully. You'd want to look into how big the tank has to be to keep them alive, though. Look for people who've had one for years, not just a couple months- again, they take a long time to starve.

theMeat · Dec 24, 2020

Don’t know much about spiny but put one tiger in my tank about 12 years ago without issue. Think I have at least 3 now, and my friend has one after I gave him a rock from my tank.
No need to feed em. The eat/clean sand

garbled · Dec 24, 2020

I had a tiger tail in a 120 deep sand bed tank for about 2-3 years. It grew very quickly, and did a great job. Eventually it got very large, and started dividing itself. I eventually ended up with 7.

When it does this, it's sometimes because it's now reached a size where the tank doesn't have enough food for it anymore, so it thinks it can divide, and the other halves will find new feeding areas. I didn't realize this. You should give away the splits ASAP, don't let them build up.

Long story short, they all died. However, this did not "bomb" my tank. Tank bombing is usually because they are stressed or attacked, and respond by expelling their innards to prevent the attack. This never happened to me, and I've personally never heard of it in the sand sifting types.

For the filter feeders, no idea, stay away from those.

vetteguy53081 · Dec 24, 2020

Not really. sea cucumbers are capable of going for long periods of time without feeding before they show any outward signs of a problem. Even when they do show obvious signs of starvation, most people do not know what to look for in these unusual animals, and will likely miss the warning signs. Because sea cucumbers are able to slowly digest themselves to cope with periods of starvation, they are often able to last for many months without any outward signs of starvation. The first time that people notice something is probably wrong with their cucumber is usually when they realize that the cucumber is much smaller than it was when it was first purchased. Slowly shrinking is a sure sign that the animal is not getting enough food. They eat a lot of detritus. This does not mean to overfeed to create it.
Also what he told you is somewhat farce. Cucumbers WHEN THREATENED (really threatened) inhale a bunch of water and physically rupture (explode) the hind gut to expel tubules and a soup of defensive chemicals that are intended to prevent the predator from ever wanting to mess with a sea cucumber again.
So, the risk of a tank wipe-out is quite low with most cukes. Tiger cucumbers are the best choice for reef tank as they are hardy and almost never stress out

Saltyanimals · Aug 6, 2021

Picked up a pink and black one. Fat about 4-5 inches and going into a 180. The stories of nuking tanks does sound scary, but enough shared experience here tell me it's worth the risk. I don't have anything that will try and eat it to stress it to go nuclear. Crossing fingers.

Daniel@R2R · Aug 6, 2021

Do tiger tail cucumbers do ok in tanks with larger sand like Tropic Eden Reeflakes?

Saltyanimals · Aug 6, 2021

Daniel@R2R said:
Do tiger tail cucumbers do ok in tanks with larger sand like Tropic Eden Reeflakes?

I'm in the same pickle. Just added a pink black and in a SPS tank so larger grains. Will be reporting back if I don't see it eating sand.

Saltyanimals · Aug 8, 2021

It went from sand to rock and started climbing the structure and hasn't been back in the sand since I've added. Seems comfortable attached to the side of the rocks. Maybe I have a rock cucumber instead. lol

CanuckReefer · Aug 8, 2021

Daniel@R2R said:
Do tiger tail cucumbers do ok in tanks with larger sand like Tropic Eden Reeflakes?

I'd wager a no, depending on actual size of sand. If its more than 1/8 inch on average I'd pass.
FWIW the OP statement... I've had one for over 15 years.

Saltyanimals · Aug 9, 2021

Turns out the one that I received is actually a edible cucumber (Holothuria edulis) and not a tiger tail. Further research says they need grains size .7 - 1.7 mm grain size where as my Reef Special Grade sand is 1.0-2.0. However I've read others here with special grade sand keeping these edulis successfully. Seems like hit or miss, but at this point it's still settling in I'm not expecting to be very active for a few days/weeks before it'll start moving around. I'll rehome the cuke if I don't see sand poop trails.

Good reading on them:

Aquarium Invertebrates: Sea Cucumbers – Part II

Personally, I do not think that there is anything wrong with keeping sea cucumbers in a reef tank as long as you take the necessary precautions to protect them from an untimely death. I keep at least one sea cucumber in every one of my own reef tanks.

reefs.com

Separate note, I did look up Reefflakes and they do appear to be much larger grains than the special grade. Which is probably a no-go for keeping a cuke if the smaller special grade is already a maybe.

Spieg · Aug 9, 2021

Have kept them in my tanks for years. Only risk I can see is if one were to get sucked into a power head. Had this happen with a Sea Apple when I was still pretty new to the hobby and it did kill most of my fish (this is why I put guards on all power heads now).

McPuff · Aug 10, 2021

I've tried a few of them and learned that they need a LOT of space and a lot of sand. Had a couple shrink down to nubs (in a matter of a week) after I thought they were perfectly fine for months. I might still have 1 or 2 but it is rare to ever see them anyway so no idea. Bottom line, better to be cautious and only try one if you have a large tank with a lot of sand. Even my 300DD doesn't seem to be big enough to support multiples.

Saltyanimals · Aug 10, 2021

I think there is an important distinction when talking about these guys are to differentiate between the sand sifters and the filter feeders as they have very different behavior and care.

For the sand sifters, it does appear to be heavily dependent on the size of your sand grains for long term success. I don't have fine power sand in an 180g SPS tank, so edible cucumber seems reluctant to spend any time on the sand. He's scaling rocks none stop including a short run up the glass walls which was alarming because of the powerhead risk. I didn't expect sand ones to scale walls unlike their filter cousins like the Apples which are higher risk to powerheads. Only 4 days in so will allow it to roam the tank for a bit before I decided if I can care for it long term.

JJKK · Aug 11, 2021

To answer Daniel's question, I have a mixture of Tropic Eden Reeflakes(3.5mm) and Mesoflakes(2.7mm) sand in my tank. Have had Tiger Tail Cucumbers in the tank and no issues with the sand. However, last night, heard gurgling and burping coming out of the Red Sea Reefer 525XL and saw this in the overflow box:

Couldn't get it out at 3:30 in the AM so just turned off the return pump till the morning. Didn't see it in the morning and main drain was still stuck for 30 secs or so. Finally cleared and found the cuc in the inner tube of the Clarisea fiter roll. Weird thing is, I saw another one at the bottom of the overflow box. I couldn't reach far enough so will have to vacuum that guy up too.

LisaAP · Aug 18, 2021

JJKK said:
To answer Daniel's question, I have a mixture of Tropic Eden Reeflakes(3.5mm) and Mesoflakes(2.7mm) sand in my tank. Have had Tiger Tail Cucumbers in the tank and no issues with the sand. However, last night, heard gurgling and burping coming out of the Red Sea Reefer 525XL and saw this in the overflow box:

Couldn't get it out at 3:30 in the AM so just turned off the return pump till the morning. Didn't see it in the morning and main drain was still stuck for 30 secs or so. Finally cleared and found the cuc in the inner tube of the Clarisea fiter roll. Weird thing is, I saw another one at the bottom of the overflow box. I couldn't reach far enough so will have to vacuum that guy up too.

Did everything turn out OK?

JJKK · Aug 21, 2021

LisaAP said:
Did everything turn out OK?

Yeah. It didn't nuke my tank or anything. Not sure what would happen if I didn't get it out of the Clarisea input tube over time.

Saltyanimals · Sep 17, 2021

Been about 5 weeks since I've introduced my edible cuke and wanted to share on the sand. It seems to clean the Reef Grade sand as evident by the sand poops it leaves behind. However I've noticed it likes to scale the glass more than I expected. Not sure if this is normal or if it's looking for other food source because it can't digest the larger grain like it could for powder sand. Too early to see if it's already starting to shrink from malnutrition. Still looks fat girth wise.

Question for others that have edible cukes: Do yours submerge under the sand or seem to just skirt the surface and only clean the top layer.

blaxsun · Sep 17, 2021

I have 4 black cucumbers and they all behave somewhat differently. One likes to hang out eating the algae off the rocks, two like to cruise around cleaning the top layer of substrate and the last likes to explore - including occasionally moving up the side of the glass. Sometimes they bury and submerge - it really depends on where the easiest access to food is (they can be inherently lazy).