good words for the sea cucumber

i heard a lot about these thing nuking your tank i have had one noe for over 4 months he loves to keep my sand nice and clean ugliest thing ever but i love it he crawls all over my vortech power head sometimes doestn get stuck and no signs of nuking my tank seriously best part of the clean up crew and something interesting for my firends to look at wen hes on the front window the mouth is seriously wierd lol love it

 

If you get the ugly brown sea cucumbers they pose no nuking risk.

I have a brown sea cucumber too and it is also my favorite part of the clean up crew. It does an amazing job, plus my nephew (3y/o) loves it.

 

PICS lol

 

I have had a tiger tail for years, very ugly but effective for mixing up the sand bed.

I have also had the smaller yellow cucmbers.

I have never had one nuke a tank. Once the tiger tail is gone though I will not be getting another one. I have heard of them dying in a hidden place in the sandbed or LR and causing serious problems to smaller systems. Not a risk I am willing to take.

 

i have one, its all black.
I have has it for about 2 years now and he has done nothing to the tank except clean the sand. Even though i touch him all the time.

 

I would imagine this might cause a problem. Especially with how large my cucumber is now. He was about 1.5" long when I bought him and he is now pushing 8" fully stretched out. I wish my corals would grow like that...

 

lol yeah mine is a blak punk sausage lol hes fugly i love it grosses me out veryday

 

I don't have one now in the big reef but I have a baby one in the nano. Amazing critter.

If I had a choice between an ugly cucumber or a dirty sandbed, I'll pick the cucumber every day. You can get some "muted yellow" ones from the Caribbean and they are a little less ugly. (I.e. not the bright yellow ones that are filter feeders).

Besides, you'll never know when you might get a hitchhiker pearlfish. (I'll let you google that critter).

 

Is this normal for a cucumber in a reef tank? Looks like they make as much of a mess as they clean up! This is an Animal Planet video clip.

YouTube - Sea Cucumber

 

I have a brown "spikey guy" as my 5 yo son calls it. 8-10" long.