Florida Sea Cucumber

[ontarioreefer]

Thinking of buying a Florida sea cucumber or tigertail sea cucumber. Wanted to ask for any real world experience. My research so far has found the following.
1. Scare stories of nukling the tank. However much of this does not seem to be direct experience but possibly a myth or just an established mantra. In the few cases where there were actual tank nuking seem to be all related to powerheads or pump deaths. It doesn't seem that the risk level is significantly higher than an anemone getting stuck in a powerhead. Haven't found an actual example of a Florida or tigertail emitting toxic substances when stressed and causing tank death.
2. Many stories of people who love their sea cucumbers for their sand cleaning and have kept them for many years
3. The sea cucumbers that die from nontraumatic causes dont seem to cause any problems.
4. Filter-feeding sea cucumbers and sea apples -> should be treated as a separate category and are well established for their ability to be toxic to a tank.

Would love to hear from people who have actually kept these animals, whether good or bad experience and also ideas on protecting pumps/ powerheads from them!

 

[littlefoxx]

My tiger tail cucumber nuked my tank. AVOID is my advice. This little *bleep* got into my powerhead (had nem guards too) and it completely nuked my tank. I had to do an emergency rescue and the water literally burned my skin. Only my eels survived when all was said and done.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

I have heard mixed things about tiger tails, but Florida cukes seem to be safer when it comes to toxicity. However I will say, whatever toxin they release up on traumatic death doesn't affect anything upon starvation, old age, or any other type of death... I've had tiger tails come and go for a long time and nothing happens when they eventually pass on.

Right now I have an Indo pink and black cuke that I like because it doesn't wander very often. It's also a much tougher skinned species, and while I can't speak on toxicity I CAN say that it does an amazing job keeping my sand clean & tolerates a lot of bullying without eviscerating.

 

[ontarioreefer]

My tiger tail cucumber nuked my tank. AVOID is my advice. This little *bleep* got into my powerhead (had nem guards too) and it completely nuked my tank. I had to do an emergency rescue and the water literally burned my skin. Only my eels survived when all was said and done.

Thank you. Looking for these stories of real experience. Sorry for what happened to you.

Do you think they are more risky than keeping an anemone that can also get caught in powerhead? From your story it seems that an event like this will kill the tank. With anemones it doesn’t seem to necessarily kill the tank.

 

[ontarioreefer]

I have heard mixed things about tiger tails, but Florida cukes seem to be safer when it comes to toxicity. However I will say, whatever toxin they release up on traumatic death doesn't affect anything upon starvation, old age, or any other type of death... I've had tiger tails come and go for a long time and nothing happens when they eventually pass on.

Right now I have an Indo pink and black cuke that I like because it doesn't wander very often. It's also a much tougher skinned species, and while I can't speak on toxicity I CAN say that it does an amazing job keeping my sand clean & tolerates a lot of bullying without eviscerating.

Thank you. Have you kept the Florida cukes? How was that experience. My lfs has some available and I was looking for a great sand cleaner

I don’t know much about the indo pink and blacks.

 

[littlefoxx]

Thank you. Looking for these stories of real experience. Sorry for what happened to you.

Do you think they are more risky than keeping an anemone that can also get caught in powerhead? From your story it seems that an event like this will kill the tank. With anemones it doesn’t seem to necessarily kill the tank.

All I know is any anemones Ive kept never made it into a powerhead, so I would say based on my experience they are way more risky than anemones! Also had nems die on me too and never had an issue

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Thank you. Have you kept the Florida cukes? How was that experience. My lfs has some available and I was looking for a great sand cleaner

I don’t know much about the indo pink and blacks.

Oops, I forgot to include that story. :grinning-face-with-sweat:
Yes, I did have one for a while. The species I had would lock it's butt into the rockwork and make wide swinging passes across the sand with it's head. I never saw the whole body, and it never left the rockwork so the risk of getting blended was low. It disappeared one day about two years ago and my tank has been fine ever since.

 

[ReeferHD]

In my old system, my tiger tail got sucked into my overflow and clogged the entire system twice, had to disassemble the diaphragm valve to get him out, he survived and over a year later he has since split in two and is doing better than ever. IME they only crash tanks if they get shredded in Powerheads or bitten by predatory fish.

 

[reefhobbiest]

I have a question when sea cucumbers split do they release toxins like when there threatened?

 

[winxp_man]

Thank you. Looking for these stories of real experience. Sorry for what happened to you.

Do you think they are more risky than keeping an anemone that can also get caught in powerhead? From your story it seems that an event like this will kill the tank. With anemones it doesn’t seem to necessarily kill the tank.

Just had two GBTA’s make it to the power head. All was good. One stopped the power head from turning after he got caught in it the other had half of itself missing tentacles. Turbo snails survived, nassi snails all good, urchins all good and so where the two Mandy Dragonetes, and 6 clown fish. But heard bad stories, just not as bad as cucumbers tho.

 

[reefhobbiest]

I have heard mixed things about tiger tails, but Florida cukes seem to be safer when it comes to toxicity. However I will say, whatever toxin they release up on traumatic death doesn't affect anything upon starvation, old age, or any other type of death... I've had tiger tails come and go for a long time and nothing happens when they eventually pass on.

Right now I have an Indo pink and black cuke that I like because it doesn't wander very often. It's also a much tougher skinned species, and while I can't speak on toxicity I CAN say that it does an amazing job keeping my sand clean & tolerates a lot of bullying without eviscerating.

I have a bright yellow cuke I got him about 4 days ago he’s tiny in comparison to my tank and he’s on the live rock he looks cool hasn’t moved from where I put him he literally tucked himself and opened his feelers do you have any experience with bright yellow cucumbers reason why I’m calling it bright yellow is because it doesn’t pop up if I just put yellow and how toxic are those in the event he splits, gets severed or passes to the great reef in the sky?

 

[Saltyanimals]

I have a question when sea cucumbers split do they release toxins like when there threatened?

my black and pink split and I didn't observe any toxin issues. I did remove some of the innards that came out as part of the split process just to be safe.