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Tiger Cucumber in Overflow?

3K views 16 replies 7 participants last post by  PuffyLuv 
#1 ·
I;ve noticed my tiger tail keeps climbing the glass. About 30 minutes ago, I woke up to take my nightly "pee" and I here my tank over flowing. I immediately shut off everything and pulled my overflow tube up and my Cucumber plops out in the drain box! Overflow into floor stops so now I'm into the stomping the floor with some towels and getting the fan out.
I put him back in the tank and he immediately starts climbing again. Is it time for him to go back to the LFS? Why is he climbing the glass?
 
#2 ·
If you have had the cucumber for a while,It could be looking for a new area for food,They are great for cleaning sand beds,and can go through one pretty quickly,and if it`s food source is depleded it will move to another area.......And your lucky that it didn`t release a toxin when it got stuck in your overflow.......Just my two cents..
 
#5 ·
75 gallon. I put him back in and he climbed right back up to top of tank and moved across the front. I decided to check my parameters and my salinity was 1.033, pH 8.3, Alk 10.9, Cal 460 and Nitrate 25. I immediately started adding DI/OR to make up what was spilled on the carpet and got the salinity back to 1.026 and within 5 minutes he dropped off glass and went back under a rock. I must have made miscaluation in mixing my last water change water this past Tuesday.....
 
#10 · (Edited)
Be careful with salinity changes in the tank,cucumbers don`t like rapid changes ,I was thinking The main reason why it would be moving around is.It could be a lack of food,,The area that they have to gather food is huge,and when they get placed in an aquarium the area to eat shrinks is limited,so is the type and quality of food available ...I would take it out,few hobbiest know that there is a black cucumber that lives off of the coast of NC,that will clean your gravel bed and help keep up the buffering capacity of your substrate,That is one of the main reasons you have gravel in your tank,over a period of time it gets locked up because of biofilm and phosphates,It only gets 3 inches long,It does not contain a nerotoxin like the other members of the family,and can live at warmer or higher temperatures,,It can polish your gravel bed,and can live for years in a small aquarium....If you would like to get one the best people to talk to are shrimpers , crabbers or fisherman.......Tiger cucumbers "can" if they are irritated release a toxin,That will wipe your fish out,That is fact...And I have seen it happen,I am not saying yours will,But why risk it..........
 
#12 ·
Dont try and collect wild species.. First off, it is illegal. Secondly, even though they may be tolerant of warmer temps, that is only for a short time off of our coast. Long term, the higher temperatures are detrimental to their health. If youd like another example of this, google margarita turbo snails from the gulf.

Your tigertail cucumber is the best bet and the most common for LFS to carry. If you have a friend with a tank, try and swap it back and forth so that he can clean tanks. Have one getting nice and dirty for you while he keeps the other cleaner.
 
#13 ·
Under what state,federal,or cities treaty law are you breaking,by collecting a sea cucumber from a local crabber ,shrimper,or fisherman...They designed the laws to protect endangerd or exotic wild,flaura and fauna from the possibility of over collecting..A marine fisheries agent is not going to arrest , detain or fine you if you are following the law....So you are saying keep something that could possibly whip out your tank,but trade it back and forth with someone else to keep your tank clean,and possibly mess their tank with for the sake of the organism,Is the right or best thing to do......Get the organism that is designed to do the job,with the least amount or possibilty for failure involved .......The species I am talking about also lives in the Caribbean ,So saying the temperature is wrong makes since either........
 
#14 · (Edited)
The laws are in place to protect all life. Not simply the endangered. Anything that you put into your aquarium has the capability of wiping out your system. All it takes is one dead organism to contribute ammonia and kill everything in the tank.

When you properly acclimate your animals to the system, then you reduce the risk of causing a catastrophic event within the tank. This again applies to all creatures.

Back to the OP, I would just try to keep the cucumber out of the overflow by using a larger mesh screen, or eggcrate. Hopefully with stable parameters, he will continue to remain happy down in your substrate.

As far as adding carbon, you can always add it into the drain side of your sump, where there is a good amount of water flowing. If you have a bubble catcher in your sump, then the space between the dividers is a great place for flow.
 
#15 ·
My cucumbers crawl in and out of my overflows at will. I have screen over the overflow pipes to keep the creatures out of the pipe. This keeps them out of the pipe but allows them to go in the overflow areas to clean. Works for them, works for me. Plus it only took two snails getting into the pipe and clogging things up for me to decide on the screens, but decided just to put them on the pipe inlets so the clean up crew could still get in there and do their job. No problems since then and nice squeaky clean overflow areas with very little effort on my part.
 
#17 ·
Oxygen. ;) Why would you go the surface in your reef tank at night, lol?

Oxygen levels go down at night in a reef tank, and the warmer and saltier your levels are, the less oxygen is in there. So, that is why when you poured in fresh water that was probably a little cooler, he dropped back down. :)

Took me awhile of watching these guys tool up the sides of the farm vat every night to figure this one out. But, like Sherlock says...the simplest explanation is most often the correct one. ;)

Congrats on your new oxygen meter, lol! Really, I love this species...have pulled half of one out of a powerhead before, with no effects at all to the tank. They can also split when they feel they have enough food, or experience a stress - it is always a surprise when emptying a farm vat how many tiger tails might be in there! ;)

Good ideas above on how to keep him out! :)
 
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