sea cucumber question

[polyppetey]

I bought a small 3 inch sea cucumber, not sure of the species, supposed to be a sand sifting type for my tank. I drip acclimated it carefully and put it in the tank. It has been 1 week now and it is not moving at all. At first it climbed up onto the glass and over the week it has slowly crawled about 8 inches from where it originally climbed. I was expecting a bit more action from it. Is it still acclimating itself? I would have thought for a sifter it would be on the sandbed am I right here?

I also read onliine here and at Wet web media that most of them puke their guys when they are collected is that a possibility for me, so could it be just regenerating itself? I am giving it time, we'll see.

Any info would be appreciated, thank you.

 

[Airwolf75]

Is it doing anything at night?

 

[Guygettnby]

every cucumber i have ever had has atleast started sifting thru sand within the first 4-5 days. look around the area where the cucumber has been and see if there are any areas in the sand that look like it has been formed into little pellets. this is what the sand looks like after it has been eaten.

also like mentioned above is it doing anything at night? check the tank in the middle of the night.

 

[polyppetey]

Nope it just sits there, i have LR stacked up against my overflow and it is up in there about 8 inches from the sand, at night it does nothing, it is moving but very little, it is curled tight between the lr and the oveflow.


Kind of bugging me, i feel bad, hopefully i am doing the right think for it.

 

[polyppetey]

bump

 

[LeslieH]

Are the feeding tentacles extended? Some LFS will sell filter-feeding cukes that are mis-labelled as deposit-feeders. A spot on the glass in an area of good flow sounds just right for a filter-feeder.

Sea cucumbers don't puke their guts. Some members of one family, the Holothuriidae, have unusual organs called Cuvierian tubules attached to the respiratory tree (the oxygen absorption system). When threatened by a predator or stressed the tubules are expelled from the body. They are extremely sticky & sometimes irritating, tangling up the predator & giving the cuke a better chance of getting away. Regeneration of new tubules doesn't affect feeding in any way.