cucumber spat its gizzards out.???

[dial]

hi all. about 2 weeks or so ago, i had a system crash. i put in new LR and it made my amonia jump to criticle levels(the LR wasnt cured, i bought it as cured ). as soon as this happened my cucmber went from the bottom of the tank to the top, and since then has never come back down.

3 days ago i finaly got my ref, and its been up and running since (except there is nothing in it - im getting all the weed, micro algues whatever i need this weekend - in about 4 hrs time im off to the fish shop)

this morning i noticed my cucumber had spat its gizzards out, i read somewhere its gizzards are deadly to fish so i removed the rock that the cucumber was attached to and put it in my ref. (the cucumbe is still alive cause its moving around the rock), i asked the LFS what happens if the cucumber spits its gizzards, they said you can still save it if you put it in a tank with fine sand, the only problem is my ref has fine sand but i dont think anything is in the sand yet as its new, do i cut my losses and let the cucmber die, or is there something i can feed it.

note... the gizzards are still attached to it, do i yank them out, or leave it.

cheers aron.

 

[S.Reef]

Personally I would cut the losses. Do you have any idea what species it is? Most are hard to keep, and some can be deadly to other aquatic life.

 

[dial]

yes its gizards are deadly. its a comon black cucumber. but its still alive. its isolated in my ref tank. and i have shut the ref tank off to the rest of the water supplie. if it drops its gizards by tomorrow ill take the gizards out, and start the water flow into the ref tank back up. if not i might send it to marine heaven.

cheers aron

 

[seastaar88]

sea cucumbers do that as a defense mechanism. as dial said, the gizzards are usually toxic --- wahtever was annoying it will be distracted by the gizzards that shoot out that it will try and it them which could end up killing them. the cucumber will actually rebuild its digestive track, so you can remove the expelled gizzards.