Ok... I'm real scared. HELP!

Ok, so I bought a pink cucumber yesterday. I got it for a real good price, $8.50 and it was real big and healthy. Well, I took him home, acclimated him for a good 2 hours. After I had finished acclimating, the little jerk decided to pull a stunt on me and started releasing these tan colored "egg-like" balls, tons and tons of them! My coral banded shrimp ate a good amount, so did my flame. So far, nothing yet. Quite frankly, I'm kinda scared of what exactly is still gonna be alive tomorrow morning.

Anyone know what this little pink butt-wipe did? And should I be worried? He clouded the hell out of my water and released a lot of egg like balls. Worried, I quickly changed out 3 gallons of water.

 

Cukes can reproduce sexually or asexually. It's just releasing eggs.

BTW, make sure none of your fish pick on it. The brightly colored ones will release a toxin if they are harassed too much.

 

Well, my flame hawk died this morning, so did my mandarin. He ate a lot of those eggs and I did read that the eggs are real toxic to fish. The pink cucumber that I bought is real bright in color. Real light pink with neon green tentacles, so I know this guy is super toxic. I'm taking him back to the FS and see if I can trade him for something else.

I have him currently in a bucket and looks peaceful, but I can't take another chance of him screwing up my reef, so he's not gonna be an addition to my tank. The tiger tail is the only one I'll keep as he's doing real good.

Thanks for the reply inwall. Btw, it seemed to have spooked my corals, do you think the eggs will harm them? They are now barely starting to come out.

 

Bummer

I'm sorry for your losses. Frankly, I don't have a problem with LFS's selling these just like I don't have a problem with them selling sea apples. However, I wish they would put up warning signs so the buyers can know about this issue ahead of time.

I think your corals are going to be just fine after they recover. Waterchanges, skimming, and carbon are your friends right now.

Their toxins are intended to kill fish. They aren't afraid of corals and their toxins (as far as I know) don't affect them. Your only issue is dissolved Oxygen for the corals and as the eggs keep leaving the system, this will rise.

 

I really have no idea what spooked him or made him spawn, maybe it sensed my tiger tail?

You're right about the three things. I did water changes, which seemed to have brought the corals back out faster. I just got the skimmer working again, as my Rio was plugged! And carbon, I put a fresh batch along with Nitrate sponge. My water is so clear right now, that I just want to plunge in and take a shower in it. Based on how everything is going now, I have came back from a major down fall with that cuke.

The only major loss is my fish! :-/ MY FLAME!! NOOOOO!!!! :FLUSH:

 

I'm glad that it wasn't worse. It sounds like your flame was a favorite and I'm sorry for your loss.

While my research indicates that the toxins don't directly hit corals, dissolved Oxygen does. Getting that skimmer running well again was a great thing. They are great at keeping dissolved Oxygen at saturation well beyond disturbing the air/water interface with a powerhead. (Actually, I encourage both).

 

wow thats 2 bad...yup...there are alot of lfs people that will say "NAH its reef safe..." man i am very thankfull that i read alot about this hobby before i started...somone once tried to sell me a emperor angel as reef safe...lol

 

Yeah, I was already attached to the flame hawk. And they are so expensive and rare that it's pathetic. I just got another mandarin today, real big and healthy for 10 bucks.

I had read up on cukes and already knew of their toxins and did read up on the "cuke nuke". But my brother has a pink and he's real neat, got a good price and was real healthy, so I said, "why not?" Didn't know the ass was gonna spawn in my tank. I do research the stuff I'm gonna put in my tank, so I wont be hitting myself later when sh*t happens!

 

That's a real bummer! I've seen pink cukes in several reef tanks that seem to be quite happy there. I personally have always feared them since they can nuke an entire tank if they die un-noticed. Sorry for your loss and good luck with the new mandarin, a fish I've never been able to successfully keep.