Can I keep a cucumber in my 2' tank?

[CAT]

I pulled out my dsb and replaced it with about 1.5 inches of aragamax. I did this because I like the look of sand and I figured that the aragamax was too dense to allow dirt to get underneath. It's working as I expected but now I see that all the dirt sits on top of the sand. Hard to syphon that stuff without sucking it out.

I'd like to keep a cuc but I've never done it because I figured to surface area in my 2 foot tank is too small to keep one. I'd say that I have a little over a square foot of sand exposed. If I buy a small cuc, will it survive? I can always put it in the fuge if it starts climbing the glass I guess, but I'd rather not.

Thanks

 

[mps9506]

What kind of cuke are you trying to get? I suspect something like a tiger tail would be relatively easy to keep in that size tank, because they eat everything, some of the other types won't do to hot however.
The reason I wouldn't recomend it however is that they move a lot of sand, and in a small tank it would be very noticable.
Mike

 

[CAT]

Will see if I can find a small tigertail. I know the black and brown cucs are not supposed to be toxic if they die, I think the tigertail is safe as well?

 

[mps9506]

I think they are supposed to be safe, although I would still take it out before it started polluting the water with waste if it happened to die.
They seem to be tough, mine would get stuck in the rocks and then not move for a week or so and then I would have two cucumbers all the sudden. I got some cool stuff trading tiger tail cucumber "frags"
BTW my tiger tail grew very quickly, I want to say he was at least 10 inches long, hard to say exactly because they change length so much.
Also make sure your rock work is stable, and not dependent on the sand to keep it in place. The cucumber will move sand from right under the rocks.
Mike

 

[CAT]

10 inches? Yikes! Too big for my tank. Maybe I'd better look at a conch instead...

Thanks Mike

 

[mgregory]

I have a tiger tail. I haven't had a problem with it but now that I took the DSB out he is going to go to a friend’s tank. He did a great jog and grew fast. He’s 6 to 8 inches now in my 55.

I did read tiger tails are toxic and it was recommended not to have one bigger than 6" in a smaller tank because if it became angry/hurt it could cause serious damage to the tank. Like I said I haven't had any problems but it only takes once.

Mark

 

[Hooked]

Hi CAT,

I had a cucumber in my 46 gal, that did not get too big. He was in there for about 2 years and was fine. He's now in my 90 gal and still doing fine. He "eats" sand and "poops" out nice little sand chains.

I got him from Flying Fish Express (bought out by Drs. Foster&Smith) and they called him an Impatiens cucumber. I've noticed there seems to be some confusion between these and tiger tails. Follow this link to tiger tails and of the two pictured mine is the light colored one. Not very pretty, but efficient and no trouble. I also don't feel that he hurt the amount of sandbed infauna.

HTH

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