Sea Apple Natures Tank Killers or Beautifiers?

About 3 months ago I purchased an Australian Sea apple from one of those shady fish stores. I only go there because they are very close and sell cheap goldfish plus I can get a general idea before I buy something but I will talk about that store more later. When I was at the fish store in Adrian Michigan (which is a great store and price matches anything found on the web sight from an actual store no matter what the cost,) my girlfriend came upon there expensive live rock tank and pointed out a beautiful dark purple with violet body and lots of yellow bumps on it(legs) and a yellow tree like tentacles poking out the top of it in every direction standing out from the rocks and various corals. I immediately asked the store owner what this creature was and he told us it was a Sea Apple. I asked him how much and he said it has been in there ever since the store opened up so he has no idea of how old it actually is but would sell it to me for $45 I was of course pondering the idea and told him to hold I was interested in it but would need to do more research. I looked up online and the prognosis was not good at all. There were hundreds of cases where there sea apple had died in the tank and basically killed everything inverts, fish, coral you name it. I found tons of articles saying how hard the care is of them and needless to say I was horrified that this creature might go into my 120 gallon precious. But there was hope in the horizon by talking to 2 different reputable fish stores and deeper research with successful sea apple keepers I found out that in most cases where these sea apples had nuked the tank was where the temp had reached very very high levels and left for awhile in the tank. From what I gathered it was basically negligence and you have to treat them like a dyeing anemone. Once you see it starting to shed its oral tentacles pull him out of the tank and put him in QT by himself. If you see him start to spew his organs or basically throwing everything out with the kitchen sink just pull him out, do not put in a QT because he is already dead, and Make sure to do a 20-30% water change because any of this leftover material will toxify your tank.

When I finally decided on buying a sea apple it was by accident that I bought the one at the less reputable place instead of the one in adrian. I was returning an anemone that I had bought but not liked because of me not being totally knowledgable about anemones at the time. I thought that if they kept moving and didnt want to stay in the place that I put them that I wouldnt have one at all, but now I know that they have a mind of there own and will do what they want wherever and whenever. Anyways I returned the anemone for store credit and happened to find my Australian Sea Apple. I immediately told them to bag it up for me. Once they bagged it up for me it pulled in all of its oral tentacles and started to swell to the size bigger than a softball. Sea apples will tend to do 1 of 3 things when stressed out so if you see this in your tank keep an eye on your sea apple. 1 it will shrivel up, 2 it will swell to the size of a basketball, 3 it will start to die and go through the first two and then start puking up all of its organs and oral tentacles etc. Anyways once it turned to the size of a softball I immediately drip acclimated him and put him in my QT at the time and placed him on a rock that was going into my 120g. After about 2 hours in the QT he went back down to the size I saw him in the store but did not poke out his oral tentacles. I kept him in the QT for a bout 2 days and then saw him poking out his oral tentacles and was watching him eat. They are filter feeders but to watch them eat is hilarious it is about the same as a little kid dipping his hand in food then sucking the food off their fingers. A sea apple will branch out all of its oral tentacles and gather food on its tentacles and when it think there is enough on them he brings it to his mouth and sucks the food off his tentacles. After I noticed him doing this I knew this was a great sign that he was healthy to go into my tank. I placed him in my 120g DT and watched him very closely for suspicious signs. When I first placed him in the DT he swelled again and then I started panicking thinking omg I killed my whole tank!! But I watched closely for many days and he was back to normal size but his tentacles were not out gathering food which is a bad sign. It was about 3 days till he opened up and started eating. Most articles said to take a turkey baster and squirt phytopheast at his tentacles to encourage feeding, but dont do it to much or it will cause an algea bloom as well as a cyano bloom I know this from exp. Once he opened up his tentacles he was one of the best additions to my tank thus far, he is just like moving coral.
I have had mine for about 6 months now and I key my success to my panicky nature and close eye on my tank. These creatures are actually quite hardy if taken care for and not neglected. If they do happen to die its because of your parameters getting way out of wack or the temp sky rocketing, and They are not tank killers if the precaution is taken to get it out in time. I would however not recommend putting these guys in an office aquarium because just incase they do die you need to be quick to remove not be gone for 3 days. As for tank size I would also recommend a tank as little as 75 gallons as they need a good amount of food just like any other filter feeder.
Good luck on keeping your sea apple and I hope this thread gave you some insight on these wonderful creatures. If you have any questions just post to the thread.
Oh heres a pic of my sea apple out in the open with oral tentacles extended, he is so beautiful.
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Another Thing that made me but this beauty is that if taken well care of it will live 50 years.

 

a great write up you have on the sea apple... yes they are filter feeders so you can supplement them with filter feeder food ( dead or alive plankton)
Good job on the research though

Can you do me a favor and conform to the boards rules of not including particular fish store's names please. just edit them out of your post please

 

Oh Im sorry, I didn't read that, but yea ignorance is no excuse sorry, I for one do not play favorites because I constantly finding deals everywhere.

 

thanks... i just dont want to see you getting in trouble with the mods :-/

 

Yea me neither, thanks for the heads up.

 

One other thing to consider is the size of your tank. Holothurin is quite potent so the more water volume you have, the safer your sea apple is. Putting a sea apple in a 29 is a recipe for disaster. It's also good to have a carbon reactor running with a quality carbon.

Brightly colored animals are usually natures way of saying, "DO NOT TOUCH". Brightly colored Holuthurians are included in this group. As a result, fish usually leave them alone. However if you ever have a stupid fish that decides it wants to attack your sea apple and it eviscerates, you have 2 problems......the Holothurin (toxin) plus all of the now-dead tissue that used to be the sea apples belly rotting and causing an Ammonia spike. It is imperative that you siphon out all of it's innards and do a pretty good water change quickly.

The smaller brightly colored sea cucumbers (colochirus) are obviously safer because they have less tissue and less Holothurin toxin.

I don't worry about them too much. I target feed a sea apple and a sea cucumber weekly in a tank with about 150 gallons of water (after subtracting volume taken away by LR and sand). However, this tank is also fairly established and there's other food there the rest of the week.

 

Yup exactly, thats why a tank size of 75 gallons might even be to small.

 

Do you stir the sand or anything to get more food particles in to the water column for him?

 

They don't ingest very much in the way of particulate matter. They eat phytoplankton.