Help with my Cucumber!!

[Ocyurus]

My goby while trying to develope a new underground cave in the rockwork excavated all of the sand cause one of my rocks to slip and land on my cuke, he is still alive but you can see a whole in his body with white hairs hanging out! He is slowly but steadily climbing on top of the rock he has all of his sand sifters out like usual but is obviously wounded... Is there any chance that he will live? Thanks.

 

[SPC]

Derek, if it were me I would put him out of his misery.

Steve

 

[Rich-n-poor]

I had a small cucumber that was attacked by a crab that hitch a way into my tank the crab tore a chunk out of his back and had some protruding tissue he has recoveres well in about two weeks however a small yellow linka which was also attacked did not I guess it depends on the extent of the damage
Some cucumbers can emit some pretty toxic chemmicals when they either die or are injured this would be my main concern

HTH

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Honda Avancier

 

[davelin315]

Hippos got it right. Cucumbers will spit out their guts to feed a predator if they are disturbed and this will not have any ill effect on them. In fact, when I was snorkeling as a young kid, I would go around poking all of the "big chunks of pooh" as I called them, well, not in such clean terms, more like "big hunks of turd" or "huge pieces of shi-t", but back to the story, I would go around poking them to make them spew their guts cause I thought it was really cool. It was kind of funny to see everyone fleeing the water saying that there were jellyfish in the water. I'm such a troublemaker. Ok, to be really honest, I did that last time I was in Hawaii which was a year ago, but I only did it to about 4 or 5 this time, and no one ran from the water, although they did give the idiot poking the brown things a lot of room to explore the sea floor.

 

[SPC]

Uh, I would think this would cause quite the ammonia spike in a closed system, I would get him out of there. It could even cause Dave to have a little nitrate in his system.

Steve

 

[danmhippo]

I remembered from high school marine biology class that cukes has the ability to puke out its internal organs in threat as a defense. The internal organs will grow a new outer shell. I have also seen injured cukes recover in weeks in my LFS. If your cuke is still crawling and other inhabitants has not shown signes of being poisoned, (if I were you), I would leave it alone and see what happens.

I do not keep cukes as I do not want a poisoning catastrophy in my tanks.

 

[Goldmoon]

Well I was buying a cucumber in the store and the guy was real nervous picking it up.. he was trying to pick it up with the bag not using his hands so he was moving the poor cucumber a lot.. result: the cucumber expelt his insides... cucumber stayed in the tank and all the guy got in the bag was the insides of the cucumber.. So I would have to say that it detaches at least in some cases from the body. No need to say that even if they survive without those I asked the vendor to pick up another one..
On the other hands there was a thread somewhere a few months back with a guy that was having pods eating his cucumbers, making holes in them... he said that both his cucumbers recovered from it...
(I will try to find the thread back but some boards don't keep them that long

)

 

[Rich-n-poor]

dave

You should really seek professional help but if you really like poking "bags of pohh-pooh" give me your address and Ill send you some diapers lol
_________________
Honda PC50

 

[davelin315]

Thanks for the offer, have a 7 month old daughter, we don't have stage 4s yet, so if you're willing, you'd save me some money...

As far as a spike, I don't think the innards necessarily get ejected completely. I think it's more like the reaction you get from a mushroom, where the innards get ejected and then pulled back in if they're not eaten. Not sure of this, though, but I do know that the innards do not become detached from the body.

 

[ophiuroid]

They certainly aren't my favorite group of echinoderms, but even I wouldn't give up on him quite yet.

He should be able to repair the damage. They do have incredible powers of regeneration, much like other echinoderms. If it is just a whole in the body, I would give him a chance. Just keep an eye on him so that you don't ammonia-nuke your tank if he doesn't recover. The do a good job of regrowing their internal organs; holes in the body aren't quite as traumatic. If he wasn't upset enough to spew his guts out through his mouth, he might still make it. Watch out for signs of healing, but if the hole keeps growing, or he stops acting right, get him out. BTW, is it a fancy colored sea-apple type cuke, or a bland brownish poo like cuke? The former can be extremely toxic...the others don't typically have the same problems.

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Brittlestars!!
http://home.att.net/~ophiuroid
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