sea cucumber to clean the sandbed?

[tigershark]

Hi all, I've enof with the algea problem on my sand bed..... I had a golden head goby shifting my sand for me previously but at the same time, it create a lot of problem for me caused it will "carry" the sand all over the place and some of my coral was covered by sand!!! especially those placed on the sand bed like plate and brain... wish to get something else to clean it up and heard sea cucumber is a good choice. anyone who kept this creature and could give some pros and cons of it? thanks!

[Achilles Tang]

Solve your algae problem by cutting the fuel source ie. phosphates, nitrates, excessive nutrients etc.

[Hondace]

if it is algae, AT's advise is correct.

but if u r looking to clean up the sand bed, sea cucumber is the best one to do the job without shifting the sands. I'm using 0 grade sand & u can imagine my sand been shifted by my goby & wrasse. I also have a tiger tail sea cucumber that is clearing up the debris in the sand & it is doing a wonderful job. The common one most reefers here have are black sea cucumber which can be easily bought.

The only dowside i know is that if the cucumber is being attack, it will throw out its internal organs which is poisonous. So aggressive fish should be avoided. IMO, the chances r rare as fishes r likely to ignore it.

[A320]

Was about to get a sea cucumber just now but saw it dumping a huge "POOP".....so i changed my mind.

However only just tried using some phosphate removing stuff and that seems to be slowly working. Hopefully before long my algae problem will be a small one!!! Fingers crossed!!

[Golden Tooth]

Was about to get a sea cucumber just now but saw it dumping a huge "POOP".....so i changed my mind.

Isn't that the sand that come out?

[A320]

hmmm.......don think it was sand. the tank that it was in didn't have a sand bed. Just lots of algae on the glass. I could be wrong though........