Sea Cucs

What is so great about having a sea cucumber in your tank? Am I missing something? Just wondering because when I was into the hobby a few years back everyone told me to stay away from cucumbers because if they die they can wipe out your whole system.

 

I had a tiger tail cucumber, nothing like it for stirring the sand bed. That is all it does 24/7, is go through the sand bed and turn it over.

I have had 3 types of see cucumbers and never had an issue.

Sea Apples are much larger, I can see how one dying in even fairly large tank could be an issue.

 

do they eat a lot of beneficial organisms in the sand?

 

I imagine they eat just about everything in the sand. They consume that sand and leave these pellets of proceed sand behind.

I had one in my 28 gallon and one in a 24 gallon. Both tanks had 1-2 inch sand beds.

I saw no adverse side effect.

I would recommend a stable scape though, because they tunnel under everything.

 

They're really just personal preference. I think something ability to take down your system really depends more on the strength of your system in the first place. The old rules against them may have been created back when tanks truly lived on the edge, and maybe then it was certainly death for one to die in your tank. I have personally kept several species of cucumber and sea apples in my tanks. I've had cucumbers of all types die, sea apples die and apples expel their guts with no ill affects. The sand sifting ones make the cleanest sand you will ever find, so I would assume they render it pretty dead after. My favorites have always been the filter feeding varieties.

 

Do they require a lot of pods or food? Also, what about snails that live in the sand like nisarrius snails?

 

I doubt they would bother anything as large as snails. As far as food level goes, most animals that consume food from within the sand bed are not easily supplemented with other foods. In the case of any of these animals, if it has the ability to keep your entire sand bed spotlessly white, there is most likely not enough sand in your tank. Just like sand sifting stars, they starve slowly, appearing to be fine then just turn up dead one day. This is one reason I prefer the filter feeders. I can always ad some plankton to the tank, but I have no idea how to replenish my sand in a hurry.

 

I have 2 tiger tail and an Atlantic. Never had a problem with them. What I did to protect the sand bed was to put a layer of egg crate in the bottom of the tank when I did the build. The idea is that this would protect the bottom 1/2 inch of sand from all the filter feeders. I don't know if it helped, but haven't seen any harm from it.