What's my cucumber doing?

[chrisstie]

I have a yellow cucumber named Hand Banana that I believe is of the Atlantic variety.

For the last few days he's been curled up on the glass up top between my heater and a powerhead (he normally enjoys the shade curled up under a crevice in a rock)

I've seen parts of him.. come off and a shrimp was eating some and then i found some weird white stringy curly things maybe 1\8" of an inch thick on the sand bed.

He still seems alive, just.. very weird. I don't think they molt, do they?

What the heck is up?

[redneck3298]

they somtimes do, you wont know if he is dead until you see him come apart

[alexb518]

some cucumbers will literally puke up their guts (as opposed to releasing toxins) when they are startled. i think that is what's going on with yours. and usually when that happens, they will shrink in size for a few and then go back to normal. so, i think that is what happened and that your shrimp was just eating part of its guts that came out.

[drummereef]

Mine did weird stuff like that too. They are nocturnal animals so you won't see much action out of them during the day. Just make sure it doesn't get caught in the intake of the powerhead. Thats how I lost mine. :(

[chrisstie]

Interesting. I am wondering what would have startled him so much to make him do these weird things but I appreciate the input- nothing is askew with my water parameters, the heater is working properly so the temp isnt changing too drastically at night..

The only thing I can think of is the addition of a new coral or fish here or there and I fragged some mushrooms\palys that could have put something into the water he didn't like but I also did a water change right after just in case it made the water icky.

He's got a little goo coming off him but seems alive - and my powerhead actually is in a spot where it shouldn't suck him up.. he just seems content to be stuck to the corner of the glass for a little bit.. Guess i'll leave him be and see what happens..

And puke up his guts indeed. The normal sand shaped pellets that come out his bum? I found some earlier that looked like they were encased in some strange.. opaque material along with those guts that looked like engorged messenfilial? mess.. something filaments that mushrooms have only a few inches big- nothing a shroom i have could produce.

[alexb518]

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?pCatId=707