Thoughts on keeping a sea cucumber

[Txpus]

Want to try and keep a sea cucumber any care tips or is it a thing I should not try ever

[Reefer_peter]

Needs a large tank of at least 3-4 feet and sufficient organic load in the sand in order to sustain it. When under stress it can release holototoxin that can crash your tank. Under the right conditions they are great sand clean up crew


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[Solo77]

Sand is a must. The only risk is it may climb to your wave maker and got blended. The release of toxic happens when they sense danger, if died naturally, won't have this issue. Can Google to read more. 

[SubzeroLT]

The common ones folks keep are full black, black/pink & tiger tail variants. Of course there are others available just not as common/popular.

Once in the tank, the black & black/pink ones 'appear' more often. Tiger tail ones tend to hide in the rocks & come out at night.

IMO, they don't really do much cleaning up as they move quite slowly. Nevertheless, they are a nice addition just for the variety. I have 4 sea cucumbers in my 5ft tank. They have been handled quite roughly on my side & wrapped around the wavemaker to eat algae - never had an issue with it spilling its guts. 

About the defense mechanism of spilling its guts - it does happen as I've seen it in coral farm's tanks. Possibly stressed from shipment.

[Txpus]

Thanks for all the reply. I guess I will do a bit more reading on the holotoxins before purchasing one