yellow eye kole tang tank size?

I wouldn't get a cucumber anyway lol.....if it dies or gets stressed, you're looking at a dead tank.

I have a brittle star though, and there's definitely plenty of crud still sitting around on my rocks. The GHalgae is all gone, but there wasn't too much of it to begin with. The film algae on the sides of the tank he picks at as it gets thicker.

 

ok so i wont scrape the sides of hte tank, ill get a serpent star, and a sand sifting star. then the CUC that john recomends. then in 4 months ill get the tang! sound good? and of course ill get the flasher wrasse before hand. lol

 

A sea cucumber is a great addition to a reef tank. I have never heard of anyone actually stressing out out to make it expel it's guts and poison any tank. I have 2 in my 200g, and I had the same 2 in my 90g. I know of one particular black Atlantic cucumber that was left in an accidentally drained tank and looked like a black nasty bob. One the tank was re filled, it was fine. IME, people saying cucumbers will nuke a tank have never tried one and are merely repeating bad information that they heard from someone else.

A serpent or brittle star won't go after the same stuff a ctenochaetus tang will, so that is fine too.


What CUC are you going to go with? There are quite a few that I won't recommend from sub tropical waters based on my 20+ years of experience. I wouldn't buy a sand sifter star, and would gt a cucumber instead.

Other than that, you plan sounds good to wait a while before you get a bristletooth tang.

 

Anecdotal evidence doesn't trump known science. They have the defense mechanism if they feel stressed, and they have the ability to die. If either happens, your tank is filled with that poison. It happens frequently because people put cukes in with things that pick on them (read: hermits, crabs, fish who don't know better), or they starve to death.

Also, just in case you don't agree about anecdotal evidence, I'll put in some more anecdotal evidence to the contrary.
"Post scriptum, almost: Yes, even your humble narrator has had (or did they have me?) & been had by Sea Cucumbers. They happily seem to be the last to die from poisoning their everyone else, quickly regenerating eviscerated organs in anticipation of the next tank full. Sigh." -Bob Fenner

 

I am well aware of the cucumber's defense mechanisms. I was a Biology major in college.

I am also aware that you would really need to do something drastic to elicit such a response from a cucumber.

It's easy to blame a crashed tank on a cucumber if one was in it, proving the cucumber was the reason is quite another story.
The internet has a lot of lies and misinformation on it, most not based on any empirical or scientific information.

How many tanks of yours have been nuked by a sea cucumber?

I'm not expecting you to change your mind about sea cucumbers in a reef tank, but the OP should know that they can safely be kept.

 

You can elicit the response by having a fish or crab pick on it regularly. That's not a far stretch of the imagination, especially considering that crabs, hermits and others, will not stop picking at a given thing if it finds it tasty and there's more of it sitting right there. Depending on the cucumber, it might not have holothurin on the outer layers, which makes it a very tasty snack for crabs - until it releases its guts.

It's easy to blame a crashed tank on anything - but I imagine Bob Fenner has a pretty good idea that cuke has crashed tanks of his, rather than something else. His site is a tome of information on nearly everything imaginable involving saltwater tanks, and he's just a bit published.

None. I keep no cucumbers. I do not have the kind of tolerance for that instant total crash, regardless as to the percentage chance that it will happen.

Of course they can be safely kept. In a system without a single thing willing to pick on them, with stable water conditions.

 

Exactly.

I do need to mention that Bob Fenner, while being a well published author, may not be 100% correct. He is human, and I have seen a couple of statements of his over the years that were not correct. He is only human after all.

 

"to err is human"

 

what kind of tang could i keep in a 65?

 

I wouldn't recommend adding a tang to a 3 foot tank.

To the OP: This is what I would do with a 55 FOWLR

Flameback Angelfish-3-4 inches
Auriga Butterflyfish -7 inches
Flasher Wrasse-3 inches
Flame Hawkfish-4 inches