Sea Apples Breeding Method

[afishybusiness]

How do sea apples breed? Does anybody know? I have two at the shop in the same tank and they had been hanging out close to one another (overlapping) for a few days. Today I see one of them blown up to the size of two softballs with it's feeding tentacles fully extended. It was expelling what looked like miniature peas. Are they eggs? Are they fertile or is it one of those things where the sperm is realeased into the water and whoever finds an egg wins? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.
Jon

[Ninong]

Are there any fish in this tank? Because eating the eggs could kill them.

Ninong

[afishybusiness]

There aren't any fish in that tank but there are in the system...I think the eggs that make it out of the tank are large enough to be caught in the prefilter. The eggs will kill them or may kill them?

[Ninong]

The eggs will kill them if eaten. I'm not sure how many eggs have to be eaten so I can't tell you if it's just one or perhaps several. Maybe I can find that info for you.

Ninong

[afishybusiness]

That would be really cool because...man.... there were alot of eggs, assuming those were eggs. Is it pretty safe to say that those were eggs?

[Ninong]

Originally posted by afishybusiness
That would be really cool because...man.... there were alot of eggs, assuming those were eggs. Is it pretty safe to say that those were eggs?

From your description, I would say that they sound like eggs to me.

Here is the best I can do for you:

From Robert Fenner's Conscientious Marine Aquarist, page 395:
One more thing to worry about: sea cucumber eggs may be ingested by your fishes with fatal consequences.

That's the only reference I could dig up at the moment but I have read this in more than one source. Rob Toonen has an excellent article on these guys somewhere on the net but I can't seem to find it right now.

While searching the FAQ section of Bob Fenner's site www.wetwebmedia.com I did come across another good one to add to my collection of incredible sayings of LFS employees (please feel free to use it if you like ;))~~

The retailer where I bought both of my sea apples says he
took the poison out of both of them. :eek3:

This poor sucker went back to his LFS to complain that all of his fish in his tank had died after one of his sea apples had an encounter with his heater and the LFS person told him that the fish must have died of something else because he removed all the poison from his sea apples before selling them. I'm sure there aren't any people like that at your store but sometimes I wonder how naive customers can be. :eek3:



Ninong

[afishybusiness]

I would like to get ahold of the guy who removed the poison from the sea apples. I would like to know how he did it...that would be a great selling point! I really appreciate your help. Should I expect some baby apples?

[afishybusiness]

Anybody else have any experience with sea apples? Any body please? I'll beg...wait a minute, I already am begging. So, please share your thoughts.

[Aragorn]

Sorry. I have stepped in a "road apple" once or twice though.

[afishybusiness]

did it squirt out a bajillion eggs? (Please say no!)

[Aragorn]

Nope. But for some reason everyone kept their distance.

[MEC]

eeeewwwwwwww. are roadapples related to pasture patties??? .Mike

[afishybusiness]

They are of two different genus. Roadius Killius and cowius Poopius.

[ranaman]

Back to the question on hand I found an old sea scope that had an article on reproduction of another sea cucumber, the medusa worm or worm cuke. They start out as male change to female as they grow. They are also viviparous the females releasing minature cukes. The seascope is Volume14, Fall 1997

[afishybusiness]

So those little peas may have been baby apples? Did it say anything about other types of cucumbers methods of reproduction? Everything in the system seems to be doing fine and I haven't seen any traces of eggs or anything yet. I am keeping my eyes out though.

[ranaman]

Doing a search on sea cucumber reproduction most scatter eggs and sperm to the water column. The eggs of these species are described as being about 0.5mm in diameter. There are some that don't have a feeding planktonic stage, but quickly settle. The bigger the eggs the more likely they settle quickly. BTW the worm cuke babies looked like minature adults but the animals also released infertile eggs.