I woke up yesterday to discover the black cucumber has grown a lot of hair overnight. I don't think it really suits him really, lol. This is what this species likes to do when away from the rockwork, he'll find whatever is available and make his way underneath it. Then he'll spend the next few days working through the sand in the near vicinity before heading back to the rocks again. In this particular instance it's kind of annoying as he's 'eaten' the sand underneath the Heliofungia and pooped it out the behind the coral so the Helio has somehow slid forward and is now squished right up against the front glass. Once the cucumber moves on I'll have to move the coral back once more.
I have also noticed that over the last year or so there is generally less sand lying around the rockwork than there was to begin with. This is because a both cucumbers eat up the surrounding sand and deposit it in piles in caves under the rocks. It is nice clean sand though. ;o)
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Another somewhat risky new addition to report and this is going to be the last one for sure!
One Friday night a couple of months ago, whilst under the influence of a couple of glasses of wine, I had this crazy idea to get a black cucumber (Holothuria leucospilota). Mr Fantastic (my Tigertail cucumber) seems happy enough living on the right hand side of the tank and I thought it would be cool to introduce another cucumber to habit the left hand side of the tank. Literally as soon as I placed the order I regretted it, I thought to myself I'll cancel that order first thing in the morning. However I rather stupidly didn't and on the following Wednesday a black cucumber duly arrived. I spent ages acclimating it and checking for any injuries, toxic releases etc. At that point I was seriously regretting ever having drunk any wine the previous Friday (or ever really). The cucumber was carefully introduced to the left side of the tank and it slowly moved to the rockwork and stayed there safe and sound for the rest of the afternoon. However when I checked on him after lights out I discovered he was climbing up the front glass. When I say I didn't sleep much that night, I mean I really didn't sleep much that night. I kept getting up to check where he was or checking the webcam with the infrared lights to make sure he was still in view and in one piece. Fortunately all he did was climb to the top of the glass and stay there. The next morning when the lights came on he climbed down to the sand and stayed there for the rest of the day. After lights out he was back up to the top of the glass again and this time stayed there for the next two days without moving. Finally on the evening of the fourth day he climbed down to the sand and moved over to the rockwork on the left side. He worked his way under the rocks and has stayed in that vicinity ever since. To begin with I could see him 'working' on the sand but as his rear end was hidden from view I didn't know if he was actually processing (eating?) any sand or not. Finally one morning, after 4 weeks, I discovered he'd left me a proper pile of white sand noodles out in full view. I am rather relieved that he appears to be doing OK, for now at least. An impromptu video of the NPS corals last night after lights out. In hindsight I probably should have wiped the glass and used a tripod. Also apologies for the reflections, the corals look good at least. Al, the Red Spotted pistol shrimp, celebrates his 4th anniversary with me in two days time (13th January 2021).
Over the last four years he has had three different partners (four if you count the Nudus goby pair as two). He was initially introduced with a Whitecap goby (Gordon), sadly Gordon managed to jump through the mesh lid after five months in my tank. After that Al eventually paired up with the resident pair of Nudus gobies (Hop and Skip), this surprised me as reportedly this species of shrimp will only associate with Whitecap gobies. They remained together for two years until both gobies had passed on. Then I introduced another Whitecap goby (Flash) and the two immediately paired up. They have been together ever since, going on 15 months now. I see the pair much more in the new tank than I did in the Reefer. They seem a lot more confident now despite the fact that Mr Fantastic, the Tigertail cucumber, like to borrow parts of Al's burrow system to move about under the rockwork. I feed them both bits of mysis etc directly every day with a pipette to ensure that they are receiving enough nutrition. For months during lockdown I didn't add any new livestock because trips to the LFS were out of the question plus I was happy to just let the tank mature, but when the pandemic showed no signs of ending I turned to online suppliers for potential new livestock acquisitions.
I have always had this crazy idea of keeping a sea cucumber but whenever I've considered it in the past I have reminded myself of the 'cuke nuke' horror stories and avoided them (when stressed a cucumber expels its Cuvierian tubules and/or holothurian toxin which can poison an aquarium in short order). I guess the state of the sand brought it to the forefront of my mind again as cucumbers are supposed to be the ultimate sand cleaners. I researched for the 'safest' species and came up with the rather attractive and really rather cool looking Tigertail cucumber (Holothuria hilla). From what I understand this species is the least likely to cause a tank wipeout. I don't know if it was lockdown induced cabin fever or a moment of wine fuelled temporary insanity because I found myself ordering a small Tigertail cucumber online. When it arrived I checked it out quite thoroughly in the bag. It was approximately the size of a thick cut sausage and seemed to be in good health with no rips or tears in the body plus the bag water was nice and clear so it didn't look like it had expelled anything nasty during transit. After an extended drip acclimation period I (rather nervously) added it to the tank. It ended up upside down on the sand but was able to right itself which is a good sign. After that it slowly made its way into the rockwork, by the next day it had completely vanished and no amount of peeking in caves and under rocks could tip me off to its location. In the subsequent days I checked for the cucumber and/or any evidence of cucumber feeding (i.e. sand pellets) but I found nothing at all, not even a tiny peek of mottled brown spiny skin. I began to fear I'd not acclimated it correctly and it had passed on, at least the fish were still OK so that was something. Finally after almost 2 weeks I spotted a brief glimpse of Mr Fantastic, as the cucumber is now known, lurking in the Rainford's goby cave on the right-hand side of the tank. This was right next to where I'd introduced him so he'd not moved much at all in the since introduction. I kept checking every evening after lights out to see if he poked his head out from the rocks to feed but no glimpses at all. Either he was sickly or he was finding so much food inside that cave that he didn't need to move around. A month passed by and he finally appeared out of that cave for a whole day (in another cave to the right of the original) this time I could see him making little sand pellets. Yesss! After that he vanished again for another month before appearing very briefly under the rocks to the left of the first cave. Clearly he's just working his way around that small area. He could be starving for all I know but I'm assuming he's finding plenty of food to keep him going. My hope of him helping to improve the look of the sand has certainly been dashed for the time being. It's been almost 3 months and he's yet to poke his head out from under the rocks, lol. I'm afraid I don't have any photos to show of Mr Fantastic with one exception and it's so bad that you can hardly tell it's really a cucumber at all. You'll just have to take my word for it. |
AuthorHi, my name is Lisa and I live in Derby, UK. I am a self-confessed reefaholic! Archives
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