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

Thanks for the info, I also herd that they wont bother with a sea cucumber.

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

I guess im gunna avoid them. Thanks again.

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 :D

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

C

Poor li'l tyke, must've gotten lonely and died of a broken :heart:

:cry:

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

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:

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

Jason Scott

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

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 :)

The Pearl fish or Pen Shell Pearl fish Carapas sp. looks a bit like a freshwater knife fish. It is very pointed at the back. This enables it to easily reverse into the cucumbers . As cucumbers are entirely marine so are the pearl fish.
Candiru is a term used to describe many species of freshwater fish from South America belonging to the family of parasitic Catfish (Trichomycteridae). This includes some really nasty flesh eating species that attack fishes gills or chew holes in them and virtually eat them alive.
I could not find any scientific stuff on their nasty habits of swimming somewhere painful. But I did find out that locals wear tight fitting clothes and in some cases use a coconut shell to guard the private parts! :)
One other bit of trivia. Candiru are the only vertebrate parasite of man.

Jason Scott

One other bit of trivia. Candiru are the only vertebrate parasite of man.


Jason,

Aren't you forgetting politicians? (Then again, most of them are completely spineless.... :P )

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

Bad as that Brazilian dude had it, I doubt that he would've traded places with this unlucky -- but very gutsy -- lady:

(WARNING -- MAJOR GROSS-OUT FACTOR!)
http://www.clouseart.com/Ron/weeklyinvert/weeklyinvert.html

FYI, it was a link on Ron's site that first led me to TONMO -- and yes, he's very ceph-friendly too.

Hey Colin, is this going off on enough of a Tani-gent for you? :mrgreen:

Tani the D (no relation to Taenia the B****)

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

i dont know... i think that progressing from the idea of a well educated ceph head (would that be head²foot?) wrestling with reclusive giant molluscs to alcoholic childrens toys and plush incarnations of evil is pretty hard to beat...

(WARNING -- MAJOR GROSS-OUT FACTOR!)
http://www.clouseart.com/Ron/weeklyinvert/weeklyinvert.html

Small world, Ron Clouse is a good friend who was woking on his masters at U of Fl while I was an undergrade. I had the pleasure of going to Micronesia with him in 2000. The weekly invert is a gem of a website for the spineless but not weak.

I was wondering if it is possable to kill Bristle worms, when i took down my old reef tank it was crawling with them. I got the tank outside and pressure washed it then i took all the dead corals and pressure washed them with both extreamly hot and freezeing cold water. Then i took them and set them on the black-top driveway( on a very hot and sunny day). I left to brin all the live corals and fish to a local fish store and decided to look around for a few hours (altogether about 4-5 hours gone). I got home and filled up my tank, the water was chilled. I went outside and picked up the rocks and started to place them in. The next day i seen a DEAD Bristle worm on the sand. Now about half a year later (i have not added anything to the tank other than the fish for starting the tank) im findng live Bristle worms. I find it hard to belive that anything could live though that but theys things refuse to give up.

*Thankfully i got smart and put on some heavy rubber gloves when i took down the reef tank to prevent any stings*

Anyone know of a way to kill them other than a preditor?

Freshwater will kill Bristleworms very quickly. The problem is many rocks are porous and would need extended exposure to freshwater for it to penetrate into the rock & kill the Bristleworms. Small Bristleworms seem to be able to get into impossibly small crevices.
For natural control, have a seen large Triggerfish take Bristleworms on occasion. If the inhabitants are crustacean friendly then Arrow Crabs (Stenorhynchus sp.) are natural predators of Bristleworms. Arrow Crabs are reef safe in my experience.

J.Scott

Also worth noting that there is a reason why there are so many worms and thats because of teh system itself.... IE there needs to be a lot of waste food there to support a population in the first place.

Personally i think that they are a good way of removing excess food which our cephy friends are prone to making!
Hooray for Bristle worms!

well after pressure washing the stones there was a big puddle and when i got back there were still b. worms crawling around in that puddle. I dont them other than they make rock moveing kinda scarry. And with an octo tank i dont think there is a way to get rid of them, i get the fealing that an arrow crab wont last long.