Cucumber with strawberry conch

[Joseph_Joe]

Hi All,

I am thinking of adding a sea cucumber, the Holothuria Hilla kind, to my 50g tank.
Tank is half a year old and when I first ordered the CUC kit, I didn't want to include a cucumber that according to internet is wrongly considered as a nuke bomb.

I read that they are very efficient in cleaning the top 1/4" or 1/2" of the sand bed.
Will that makes them compete with conches ?
What I would like to avoid is having 2 species that compete on the same food source. I already have 3 strawberry conches.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Glenner’sreef]

I too thought it would be cool to get a Red Sea Cucumber. It went through my sand very efficiently then climbed half way up the tank glass an shrunk. And shrunk. Unfortunately it starved itself to death. It lasted 3 or so months.

 

[Joseph_Joe]

I too thought it would be cool to get a Red Sea Cucumber. It went through my sand very efficiently then climbed half way up the tank glass an shrunk. And shrunk. Unfortunately it starved itself to death. It lasted 3 or so months.

So sad. Did yours eat diatoms or cyano ? As my tank is new, I may have a quite amount on the rocks and glass

 

[Glenner’sreef]

So, from what I understand about Sea Cucumbers is they are crazy consumers of everything in your sandbed. Everything! Once living and non living things…. Pods, worms, detritus etc are gone, then they shrink and starve. They seem to be one of those animals that just shouldn’t be captured and sold. To contrast that, I’ve got a Blue Tang, Van Gogh. He’s going on 12 years. I have a 180g reef and thought he’d the cucumber would be around for some time.

 

[Joseph_Joe]

So if they also eat pods before going to the diatoms, then they will also compete with the 2 Mandarin Dragonets I have. Then, it's too risky to add a cucumber for now. Thanks for your feedback!

 

[Malum Argenteum]

I have four or so (five maybe?) of this species in my 90g. They've been in there over ten years. They've reproduced asexually at least once. They're neat. I do not consider them "CUC", but rather part of the target livestock population.

If they're efficient sand bed cleaners, I have not noticed it nor have I noticed them doing any particularly useful work. They do in fact feed from the substrate, but I have to vacuum quite regularly. The best sand bed cleaner is a siphon hose -- it works every time you want it to, stops working when you want it to stop, doesn't die and pollute your tank, isn't harvested from the wild....