Sea cucumbers

[Milky3]

My sea cucumber just barfed its insides out , it was the most tripped out thing i have ever seen.:eek2:Has anybody had this happen to them?

[DevinWolfe]

This is BAD. This process is called evisceration. Basically they mutilate their own bodies as a defense mechanism when coming under stress.

The secreted "stuff" is toxic/poisonous.

http://library.thinkquest.org/C007974/2_1scs.htm

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/seacukes.htm

[d2mini]

Depends on the cucumber. The gulf ones are non-toxic. If it's from the indo-pacific, you may want to start doing some water changes.

[DevinWolfe]

My mistake for being so hasty in my assertion, I have only kept (still keeping) a pink and green filter feeder. I thought they all shared the same defense mechanism.

Thank you for the clarification.

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[d2mini]

Well you may be right as far as the defense mechanism goes. I don't know if ALL cucumbers do that or just the toxic ones. I had one die in my tank (that i knew was non-toxic) but it just died, nothing crazy like that. I currently have 3 others.
But I do know only certain kinds are actually toxic and certain kinds are not so the OP needs to check into all this if he doesn't know. Regardless, the first think I'd do is remove as much as I could asap.

[Milky3]

Well found my sea cucumber stuck to the power head today in half, I guees this is of the non toxic variety because nothing happened to my tank.Thx for the replys.