Been Asked Before, I Know

[Spence24]

I was wondering if you could keep sea cucumbers safely with an octo safely, I know you can keep starfish, and I don't want to keep my cycling damsels because of the whole "I want to eat your eye balls" thing lol. But along side of the cucumber (they crack me up) is their any other interesting fish you can keep safely with them? If it matters I think I am going to get a bimac.


thanks, ryan

 

[cuttlegirl]

Well, when the sea cucumber dies, it releases toxins into the water so I wouldn't recommend them with your octopus.

 

[Spence24]

I didn't know that, thank you.

 

[cuttlegirl]

I was wondering if you could keep sea cucumbers safely with an octo safely, I know you can keep starfish, and I don't want to keep my cycling damsels because of the whole "I want to eat your eye balls" thing lol. But along side of the cucumber (they crack me up) is their any other interesting fish you can keep safely with them? If it matters I think I am going to get a bimac.


thanks, ryan

You can keep hermit crabs (although they may become food) and some people have kept cleaner shrimp. Most people recommend that you keep an octopus by itself, although there are people on this site who have had success with some fish and an octopus.

 

[Spence24]

Well, I am planning on feeding it shore shrimp I would rather not encourage it to make friends with its dinner. Haha. Hermit crabs would be fun. And I'm guessing that urchin's would be out of the question???

 

[DWhatley]

I keep mostly interesting clean-up crew, including serpent stars and common stars (and then there are, of course, the inevitable brissle worms ) in the tank with my pygmies. I have a couple of pencil urchins in the larger tank but I do not grow enough algae to support them (one advantage to a dimly lit tank ) and have to supplement with dried seaweed/algae (so much for clean-up). Other urchins are not recommended because of the various spine concerns but I have not tried them. A word of warning though, if you keep any kind of gorgonian or feather duster, I recommend that you do not put in even a pencil urchin. Over time, mine have eaten both and once they get a taste for either, you cannot keep them in the same tank (all my others are now in sumps for this reason).

Nancy has warned that some octos have damaged or killed feather dusters by moving them (most attach and moving them will destroy their "home", repair is slow and the destrustion is sometimes fatal) but they are a simple to keep, any kind of lighting successful, very attactive and harmless addition if you want to try (they survive in my cold tank but their feathers stay smaller than in the warmer tanks).

I have also found that the red mushrooms (Caribbean) will survive and grow (albeit, slowly) in a low light tank but I am not sure how well they would do in the cooler water needed for a bimac (they will die if forcefully moved but are less likely to be a temptation).

I also keep a nonphotosynthetic sponge (it actually does poorly in light) that is a bright yellowish orange. I don't know the official name but you can see one on the website I webmaster:

http://sealifeinc.net/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=36&products_id=141

This is the only sponge I have ever been able to keep for a long period of time (I have a couple well over a year old, including the ones in my octo tank). They don't appear to give off any toxins and add color where it is difficult to have colorful coral and can be glued or just wedged into small openings.

 

[Spence24]

Thank you dwhatley I will probably end up getting a pencil urchin, and maybe a nonphotosynthetic sponge, I really just want to bring some more color and life to my tank.