I felt so bad, I'd never add an animal to my tank thinking it could get brutally chopped up like that. I really liked my cuke it was a great sand sifter. btw that's what they do, eat your sand and poop it out clean in cool cuke poop swirls. Make sure you have nice fine sand if you get one or it's likey to starve you can tell it's eating by the trails of cuke poop all over the tank. If not they slowly start consuming themselves and get smaller until they die. I assume this is the risky part bc most people probably don't realize their dead at first as sometimes they just stay in the same spot for days anyway.
If you can keep them fed their pretty hardy, my understanding is that they need to be acclimated really well at all stages or they just quit eating and don't make it. I'd look for one at the lfs that's already doing well and eating bc that would mean it made it to them in decent shape. It's hard to tell with this type animal the health otherwise. You certainly wouldn't know if it had started shrinking and eating itself if you hadn't seen it b4 that day and the shrinking dieing can take weeks to months. You want one that's actively munching sand if possible and you should definitely see sand pouring out the other end, that should be an almost continuous state for them even if you don't see eating there should be a stream of sand out it's other end.
