Tampa LR Gulf Cucumbers Molting (pics)

[o2zen]

Sorry for the dup post but the other would not let me edit.

I have a cucumber that looks to be shedding its skin. Is this normal or a bad thing? I have heard that when they die they can posion the tank so I want to make sure he is doing well. I have seen them open up (flower) to feed which was very odd to watch. He moved around alot. Today my tank got hotter than normal as the new heater I put in the tank to balance the temp changes seems to have pushed it to about 85degrees. I wanted to make sure this did not hard this guy.

This is what came off or out of the Cucumber.

 

[o2zen]

Nobody has any thoughts on this Cucumber issue? I want to make sure its not dying.

 

[ToadSprocket]

o2,

Interesting, my cuke is doing something similar today as well. I was going to post separately until I saw yours.

It almost looks like your cuke did the gut puking thing, judging from the last picture. I think this is a stress / defensive reaction they have. Someone else can probably explain better, but I believe its called "eviscerating". They can recover from this, but require excellent water condition / params to do so. I would watch him.

Of course, I have never seen a cuke eviscerate, so it could be something else. It just looked like more than a simple skin molt to me, I could be way off base.

My situation was a bit cleaner, in that my cuke just appeared to be molting his skin, and is now looking like a brand new guy. Not sure if molting is normal or not, or if its a bad thing, i.e. stress reaction. (I had some water temp issues a day ago)

Anyone with more knowledge have some experience to add?

 

[o2zen]

Yeah my water temp got to 85 today according to my wife but might have hit 90 even. She also told me a Shrimp is on its back but this might be due to a chemical I used to treat my LR for an Isopod then the shrimp ate some Hermits that died from the chemical /grrr Isopods.... /Grrrrrr