Pink/Black sausage

Hey guys thinking of getting a pink/black sausage to clean my sand bed. Any thoughts on this would be great is it worth it are they hard to keep do they cause problems should i even bother.. i did have to gold headed sleepers but they would never come out long enogh to eat when i feed the tank so they are dead also they moved all my sand around and it wasnt even that clean.. any thoughts please HELP

 

I assume your on about a sea cucumber and not Walls pork or beef sausages?

Lots of info on wiki about them:

Holothuroidea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=16 1899&aid=2114

Ultimately dont keep them with anything aggresive - it could cost you your tank

 

I think a lot of people want to get into cucumbers and apples but then you think about everything you've invested in your tank and most would decide not to. A is said to be able to kill your whole tank overnight if it dies. Sounds like hell of risk.

 

AFAIK the more colorful, the more dangerous to your tank. If you get any I would go with a brown one, tiger tails are commonly used and are less dangerous I believe, but they do get really big eventually.

 

I would imagine putting sausage into your tank would in the least cause major nitrate issues, specially if it was old and rancid enough to be black and pink. What kind of sausage? Breakfast? Hot link? Bratwurst?

 

LOL! i agree dont get a really color full one as i have heard HORROR stories! what about a sand sifting star fish or sand sifting snails? theres plenty more reef safe critters out there so you dont have to put your tank at risk! also you could get an engineer goby lol even they will move everything around still pretty cool!

 

so if it dies its gonna kill everything in my tank ?? i only called it a sausage cause thats what it was called at the shop

 

Yes, the sea cucumbers are similar to anemones in that they will release toxins into the water when stressed, only they are a lot worse than anemones. Kinda in between anemones and sea apples.

I personally would just get some nassarius snails.

 

Holothurians are called cucumbers in most places. That's why they found it funny it was called a sausage.

As a general rule, the more colorful a holothurian is, the more dangerous it is when it is attacked or dies. Any cucumber/sausage can eviscerate. That's a fancy word for basically throwing up their digestive system. (Not what is in their digestive system.....they throw up their entire digestive system and grown a new one). This is a stressor to a tank but not the end of the world (assuming good filtration). With that said, many of the more colorful ones can exude toxins as well. Depending on a tanks setup, this might be no big deal, or in other situations, it could nuke a tank.

That's why it's difficult to make generalizations.

 

Always amazed at the ability to learn of these forums.. the sausage/ cucumber that i bought is only 10cm in a 400 litre tank / 120 gallons do you think its big enough to NUKE it