Cucumber Shed Skin????

[Aqua_Man]

I have a Cucumber in my tank which is shedding its skin. Is this normal? I checked my water parameters and there is a tiny bit of amonia due to over feeding by a friend when I was off on vacation, but nothing lethal. A water change is happening today just in case. Please advise.

[fishguy_8]

i've had my cuke for 2 months now and i've never seen him shed his skin. deffinitely do that water change. may want to do one every 2 or 3 days until you get that ammonia gone. but again i may just not have ever witnessed the skin shedding. hope everything works out for ya.
Jon

[organicreefer]

are you sure the cuke is still alive?i have 2 tigertails ,and they dont shed.you should never be able to read any amonia in an established tank,its almost a sure sign that something is dead,or youre bacterial population has been dameged.

[eses]

Mine began loosing chunks of skin soon before it died completely. Chances are it is dying. Parts of "good skin" would come off, and small light patches would be underneath almost blue in color. It happened in about .5x.5cm sizes and smaller.

Though, mine would also get rather coated in sand and that would sluff off making it look like it was shedding something. But it is pretty obvious the difference in it's skin to sand.

[Biomanjcs72]

Sometimes they will slough off a "slime coat" to remove ectoparasites and the like. But I'd still watch it, I've never been a big fan of cukes in tanks anyway (see evisceration)...

[organicreefer]

bioman:what you got against cukes?(curious:what do you know that i dont)

[Biomanjcs72]

When frightened, or sometimes just for fun (or to rid themselves of an internal parasite), they can eviscerate their entire digestive tract and grow a new one. Needless to say, if you have a big cuke in your tank and he gets a hankering for a new set of pipes, your tank could suffer the consequences of his "discharge". All of that being said, I have only heard of a few stories of this happening in tanks, I just know they can do it, and it scares me.

[fishguy_8]

biomanjcs is right....they do have that capability.....as do any other holothuroidea member....more specificly the sea apple....like he said this doesnt happen too often w/ cucumbers but with sea apples its not too uncommon. my cuke doesnt seem to get stressed very easily....he was in a tank w/ a cowfish when i got him and he was agitating a bit when i got him but he never caused me a problem......my cuke is just slacking on the cleaning these days though. lazy bum
Jon

[organicreefer]

oh is that all:eek3: i am aware of this but i just make sure to kepp only small(4-5 inches max) cukes,when they get bigger its back to lfs.doing this i feel reasonably safe,idoubt one little cukes gonna wipe out my 120.cukes are the BEST for keeping the sand white ime