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May be a stupid ? BUt want to know

Joined
Dec 10, 2002
Messages
12
I was wondering what if any anenomies sea cucumbers,sea apples, clams etc with a Bimac? I know chances are pretty slim but was wondering if anyone has had any success with any of the above mentioned or anything else not mentioned.
 
I have kept sea cucumbers, sea apples and some hardy soft corals with cuttlefish before but never with octopuses. best you can expect there is maybe start fish or urchins.

Avoid anemones because they will sting an octopus's sensitive skin!

Clams will just get eaten 8)

C
 
So far my octo has cohabited perfectly with 3 brittle stars, a sand sifting star, a Fromia sp. star, and three urchins (two blue tuxedo urchins and a pencil urchin.)

I have heard that they don't interact with cucumbers, either. But I have heard so many horror stories about cukes that, although I really want one, I'm terrified to get one. They can release lethal toxins into a tank (especially the pretty sea apples that I want), especially upon death, which seem to especially kill fish, and MAY not be a threat to inverts. They can vomit/eject their internal organs or Cuvier tubules (I think I remember that name properly) in defense...which can again toxify the tank, but worse, the tubules are incredibly sticky, like glue. A fish covered in them isn't likely to survive, plus it's nightmarish stuff to try to remove from the tank.

Colin...any experience on that? Would a sea apple dying in the tank harm corals/other inverts/octos?

rusty
 
Yeah, im sure it would harm a a ceph too.

I have to say that the best looking sea apple i have ever seen was the one that was in my cuttlefish tank.. if you think that octos are messy try a cuttlefish! The apple was always feeding on the bits of food the cuttles would blast into the water. And it was also used as a handy sitting spot when they cuttles got tired LOL they used to just sit on the apple half way up the glass.

When the cuttlefish were all gone the apple died about two months later!

C
 
Re: May be a stupid ? BUt want to know

Non toxic echinoderms are usually perfectly safe with an octopus.

A few Cnidarians that the octopus can avoid are also fine.

Many, but certainly not all, octopuses will eat clams.

I prefer lobster myself :biggrin2:
 
LOL yeah maybe that's it!

Ever seen the documentaries with the sea cucumbers that have a species of blenny hide inside their backside if danger threatens????

Off topic but I just seen it a few days ago and the apple made me think of it!

Is there an emoticon for that?

C
 
Colin said:
LOL yeah maybe that's it!

Ever seen the documentaries with the sea cucumbers that have a species of blenny hide inside their backside if danger threatens????

Yes! I don't remember the name of the documentary -- I think it might have been about symbiosis -- but they did show footage of the little fish inhabiting the sea cuke's nether orifice. It occurred to me that someone could make a fortune selling posters of that with the caption, "And you think YOUR job is bad?"

:yuck:
 
J.Scott said:
The fish that hides inside cucumbers is a pearl fish (Carapus sp.).
Just thought you'd like to know. :smile:

Jason Scott

Thanks, Jason. BTW, the name Carapus sounds familiar. Is that the parasitic fish that detects urea in the water and follows it into the gills of host fish? The one who -- if you're a guy and you pee while standing in the water -- might get Up Close and Personal with you in a very, very unpleasant way? * OUCH! *

:shock:
 
We keep our local large sea urchin, (Kina to the Maori,Evechinus chloroticus to science) in with our large common octopus (Pinnoctopus cordiformis) also we have in the tank large slit limpets, called ducks bill limpets (Scutus breviculus) sometimes we have small wrasses in with it as well. We don't put any form of anemones in as we find the octi develops skin lesions, presumably from the stings, we also keep a variety of asteroid seastars in there too. Of course there are usually a few large crabs, but they don't last long!. On the odd occasion we've also put in mussel lines from a mussel farm, although the seastars usually polish those off and once or twice we've put in drift wood covered in goose barnacles (Lepasspp I think). The drift wood and mussel lines provide the octi with hours of "fun"!

J
 
Regarding the tale of the "candiru" fish...

This is the sort of tale that just REEKS of urban legend. Yet it refuses to die...so much so, that either one must conclude it really is true, or that it's attracted some intriguing hoaxes. I remember looking into this a while ago...following is a link to an article from The Straight Dope (a useful and humorous site for lots of strangeness and hoaxes), and a link to the site mentioned in the article. What few other references I've been able to find in urban legend sites also seem to claim this is true...but I can't find any scientific documentation of this except for the Brazilian site, which is of course in Portugese and which has graphic but difficult-to-interpret (for me, anyway) photos. Draw your own conclusions...but maybe watch what you do when in the water in Brazil, eh?

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010907.html

http://www.internext.com.br/urologia/Casosclinicos.htm

rusty
 
I think this thread is well on the way to being the 'most off topic ever' LOLOL keep it up :smile:
 

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