Urchin or Sea Cucumber, both, or neither

[Schmitty]

What are thoughts on tuxedo urchins, pink fusion urchins and tiger tail sea cucumbers for a good clean up crew? Anyone have experience? Let’s remember I have a 40g reef

 

[Coral reefer]

One tuxedo and one cucumber

 

[derek_SR]

+1 on the tuxedo. I have just one in my 130gal and he is employee of the month. They do incredible work.

I don't have experience with cucumbers - I think @under_water_ninja mentioned to me that they are more for keeping sand clean? Is the "tank nuke" thing a real risk?

 

[Coral reefer]

+1 on the tuxedo. I have just one in my 130gal and he is employee of the month. They do incredible work.

I don't have experience with cucumbers - I think @under_water_ninja mentioned to me that they are more for keeping sand clean? Is the "tank nuke" thing a real risk?

I think that is sea apples?

 

[Matthew Meyer]

I love my pink sea urchin. Super active. I think cucumbers can nuke tanks when they eventually die.

 

[Darkxerox]

I got a tiger tail from Kenny but it unfortunately met its demise in my vortech. I've since upgraded that vortech to the urchin anemone guard that he uses and there haven't been any incidents since.

Note no tank crash and I was out of town for 3 weeks so no water changes either.

I've kept tuxedo urchins for years too and I think they're great at keeping coralline and other junk at bay on the back wall. Plus they make you "new" sand when they poop it out! Just make sure your frags are secured.

 

[rdriggett]

I love my halloween urchin! He wears a traffic cone as a hat and diligently cleans bryopsis, bubble algae, gha, etc etc.

 

[Schmitty]

Thanks everyone

 

[JVU]

The “cuc nuke” issue is only certain specific cucumber species with toxins, mostly the colorful ones like sea apple. The tiger tail isn’t one of them.

That said, tiger tail doesn’t do much noticeable cleaning in my opinion. It just sifts through the sand for food but not enough to keep it looking clean. I like it for interest’s sake though.

Tuxedo urchins are great.