rock-climbing seacucumber

[lilismom1]

i hadn't seen my cucumber for a couple of days. was starting to worry that maybe he died or got stuck somewhere and was about to poison my tank. then tonite he shows up on the top of my highest fiji rock. is this normal? i just got him 1 week ago and i'm not familiar with their behavior.

 

[steve-s]

Very normal for cukes. They will come and go throughout the tank. My tigertail disappears for months sometimes. If ever in doubt, always check the water quality. It will be the first sign of a problem.

How old is the tank? What kind of cuke do you have?

Cheers
Steve

 

[lilismom1]

tank is about 3 weeks old at my house but was an established tank when i bought it. i'm not sure what kind of cuke he is but he's about the size of my thumb 2 1/2 inches maybe and all brown. he looks like doody. i was leary of adding him but the lfs strongly recomended him to help with tank clean-up. they swore to me that my water tests have been fine.

 

[steve-s]

The LFS is right about one thing, they can be increadible at keeping the sanbed clean. By the sounds of it, you have a tiger tail cuke.

The reason I asked about the tanks age was they rarely do well in new set up. Not only for the water stability issues but also natural food sources. If the tank is too young, there will not be enough to sustain it. Once in a mature tank (>1yr) they can do quite well and the tiger is propabley the best choice. If they do ever "meltdown", they are the least likely to poison the tank as long as the tank is not too small.

Cheers
Steve

 

[cmor1701d]

I have 2 in my 125. I was surprised when I first saw them crawling over the rocks.

I am more surprised that that the larger one is still alive. He seemed to eviscerate with hours of being placed in the tank. I quickly removed the stringy mass and did a water change. That was 3 months ago.

 

[lilismom1]

well, so far so good. no stringy stuff. i think he'll be ok because my tank was set-up for over a year with the previous owner. i kept all the old sand and rock, and just replaced the water. it's covered with "stuff". it was only empty for about 2 hours.