Cucumbers SUCK

[afss]

I just experienced a TOTAL fish wipe out. Every fish in my tank is dead. 13 in the main tank, 27 baggai babbies in my inline breeder tanks. :blob2: :uzi: :uzi:

Some of the snails seem to be droping.. What can be done to help has ben done.
The corals look like ****, but some seem to be coming back
What i think happened is my pink belly cuc got sucked through a power head. I found bits of him through out the tank. This power head had a gaurd on it.. not much of one, but still had one.
I have one cuc left in the tank at the moment, but i am pretty sure he is about to be traded back to the store.
Please everyone make sure your pumps are gaurded better than they way they come from the box, or get rid of your cucs... they are great sand siffters, but IMO not good enough to outweigh a total tank crash

HAPPY NEW YEAR :sad2:

[Daniel Schubert]

Sorry to hear about your loss

Daniel

[Sparrow]

Sorry about the loss. I had the same experience with my old tank. I never will use a cucumber again, and looking at my new tank there is no need for them.

[afss]

I wish i had known.. if i had i never would have kept it to begin with. I like them, but they aren't worth this kinda loss.

Does anyone know what type of toxin they release, and what it does to what species?
Thanks
Scott

[Gordoe]

I had a sea apple die on me this summer. Someone gave it to me.

Had the same thing happen, wiped out the whole tank, but on the lighter side I did have a huge hair algae bloom.. Woohoo!!

My suggestion is start the water changes now and make sure your protein skimmer is running at 100%.

Good luck

[afss]

I used to think that they weren't that bad. I had one of the tigger tail expell its guts into the tank with no ill effects, but i guess it was because it didn't expell many guts, or that it wasn't as toxic.
I know i won't be risking it again.

Where in burton do you live?
We got one of our dogs from a farm just the fredericton side of old orchard crafts.

Scott

[Mitchell]

Scott

sorry man. I'll give you a shout. You know where to come for help, and some frags to get you going again.
Think i'll be pulling my cuke out. I dont need this hassle:(

[canadawest]

Obviously you have the evidence of cuke bits all over your tank, but it was my understanding that pink bellied cukes are not toxic. Makes me wonder about the Pink Hawaiian (pink bellied) cuke I've had for 6 months, as well as the pair of Tiger-Tailed cukes as well.

All of my Maxi-Jets have the little guards on them, so no cuke is going to get in them. Besides, I've never seen any of my cukes on the glass in the 6 months I've had them (as they'd have to climb up the glass to get at any of my powerheads anyway)

I have also had a Tiger-Tail puke it's sticky guts out when I tried to handle him to move him, with no ill effects at all in the tank.

I wouldn't shy people away from ALL cukes, but just be sure you know what you are buying, and research it first. I'm 99.9% sure that Tiger-Tails are non-toxic, and WAS 99.9% sure that Pink Hawaiians were safe too. As far as I knew, only the Atlantic cukes (or sea apples as they are sometimes referred to) were trouble.

Go figure?

Sorry bout the loss Scott. Hopefully it doesn't take long for a full restocking.

[afss]

Yeah. It was my understanding that they weren't toxic too. I never really totally researched the pink one, but was told it wasn't. I thought that sea apples were the only ones to worry about too. I posted to DR Ron on RC, and he said that the pink bellies weren't toxic. I posted my setup and parameters etc and told the time line of the story to him. just waiting now to see what he has to say could be the cause. Maybe there are different species of pink bellies. I know mine had a lighter pink than others that i have seen. Either way i figure i'll trade in my other cuc, and get some sand sifting snails with the credit.I'm not trying to condem all cucs, and people can keep what they want to, I just don't want to take a risk unless someone can gaurantee me that they are ok, and will pay the re stocking cost (in this case 4-600) if something happens again.

Scott

[afss]

Oh yeah, I had a tiger tail puke out its guts once too with no adverse effects, maybe its the species, maybe its when they died that toxin is released... I don't really know.

BTW thanks for the offer of help Mitch.. I'll be in touch
Scott

[christyf5]

It was my understanding that those cukes that don't release toxins still release a heck of alot of ammonia into the water when they croak. This may be what happened to your tank?? Just a thought.

Christy :)

[afss]

YEah, it could be amonia or something else. The cuc was probably 4-5 incehs in length, but if it was an amonia problem shouldn't it take longer than a 6 hours or so before it effects the whole tank so drastically. Esspecially with a skimmer running and all the live rock and DSB? Maybe not, i don't know for sure. I am not rulling anything out right now. but even if it isn't toxins it still upset the tank in a major way and the end result was still the same. To me it kinda makes it even scarier if it isn't toxins and is only something like an amonia spike.

[Sparrow]

There was a post by Biogeek last year or maybe the year before on Aqualink about cukes. See if you can find it in their archives. The cuke that I had wipe out my tank was pink/black. Pink on the belly black on the top. When it wiped out my livestock it did survive the powerhead ordeal and recovered.

[afss]

thanks for the info. I did a search there on bio geek and on cucumbers, and didn't see anything related.. any idea on the title of the post?
thanks
Scott

[Dman]

Scott,
Sorry to hear about the disaster, shredded in a powerhead, ouch. Thanks for the heads up though, as I was thinking about acquiring one for my tank. Think I'll pass now.
Regards
Derek

[canadawest]

I think it's also important to look at cause and effect here.

The cause of this whole debacle was an animal getting into a powerhead, which should have never occured in the first place!

Lets not forget that the cucumber also died. Every animal we keep deserves to be cared for safely, this includes ensuring that all of our powerheads are properly protected with guards!

Again, I'm not trying to downplay the tragedy, just wishing that people take it as a learning experience. (and unfortunatly a costly one for Scott)

[afss]

The power head in question does have a gaurd on it. I have looked for larger gaurds at local stores and have never found one. The point isn't about protecting the cuc. who is to say that if it had died a natural death the same thing wouldn't have happened? who is to say that if there was a larger gaurd that it wouldn't have gotten sucked through that too.
Believe me i feel bad for the cuc too and i wanted this to be a learning experience. Thats why i said either protect your powerheads better, OR get rid of the cucs.
Scott

[afss]

for anyone interested in an explanation of what might have happened to my tank, by DR Ron, go to the following link and read the 2nd post by ron.

http://www.reefcentral.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53977

Scott

[Mitchell]

Scott
Great explanation by DR. Ron.