The Sea Apple Debate

[ryebread]

I don't know what to think anymore. I'm a guy who doesn't like to give advice until I have experience first hand with something.........that is pretty much why I have always stayed out of the Sea Apple Debates where folks will argue back and fourth about how deadly a Sea Apple would be to thier tank.
Most people seem to stick with the side that Sea Apples will pretty much destroy your tank entirely if it releases it's toxins into the tank. I was pretty much under the same impression for a while, but never had experience with them myself.
As some of you may already know.......I am now running a LFS and Aquatic Enterior Service for many clients. My partner has been ordering Sea Apples for a little over 10 years now and has never.......I repeat never had a Sea Apple destroy a tank. One of our accounts has a reef tank that has held the same Sea Apple for the last 7 years. They had a Sea Apple for a couple years before that, but it was killed by a Trigger that was in the tank. Nothing happened to the tank except for the expected ammonia rise.
One thing sticks in my head about what my partner said:
"Hey man, I have all of my reef tanks plumbed together sharing the same water........do you really think that I would chance killing off thousands upon thousands of dollars in merchandise if a Sea Apple dies on me? I hate to admit it, but I have had Sea Apples die on me several times......nothing has ever happened to my tanks.......even when sometimes the Sea Apples expell thier insides."
I just don't know if I should keep getting on his case about ordering Sea Apples. Customers love them and I am just worried about them coming back to me with a good feeling.

 

[elitsoh]

hey rye congrats on the store....and could you send me directions to your store maybe i can talk slothy into takin a drive with me
glenn@slothyville.com

 

[seahorseguy]

i have known people to have it in their tanks. Some people had good experiences with them and some real bad ones as well. I would like to have one because thwy r so beutiful.....and i have the same concern.......alot of people sat it is fine if you keep it in a non aggressive tank...........one of feriends had one died on him but nothoing bad happened to his tank. he tought it would wipe out the tank but its been a couple of weeks and his tanks are fine......so i might buy one if my tank ever finish cycling.....just my 2 cents

 

[nm reef]

Rye...like you I have no first hand experience with these colorful creatures. But...also like you I have heard repeated reports of the damage they can cause. Below are a few random quotes from a on-line article that I can't directly link here. As stated I've never kept one but information like this from respected members of the hobby cause me to shy away from sea apples!
“Death in a Colorful Package” is a title that has been used several times (e.g., Friese 1973, Wilkens 1998) to describe a marine invertebrate with aposematic coloration. Aposematic coloration is defined as a specific set of conspicuous colors and/or patterns of marking on an animal to make it easily recognizable in order to warn potential predators that the animal is poisonous, foul-tasting or otherwise potentially dangerous.

In the aquarium industry, however, “death in a colorful package” is most often applied to the strikingly-colored group of sea cucumbers known as Sea Apples.

Ok, having explained what a sea apple actually is, let’s get down to the discussion of why they have such a dangerous reputation among reef aquarists. As I explained above, many marine plants and animals defend themselves from being eaten by having some sort of chemical defense that makes them toxic or highly distasteful to potential predators. These brightly colored sea cucumbers are popular because they are so beautiful, but in this case, sea apples are one of those species that appear to advertise the fact that they are toxic by having bright and easily recognizable color patterns on their bodies.

 

[nm reef]

additional quotes from the same article...
The potent chemical defenses of these colorful sea cucumbers can be extremely toxic to fish and other coral reef inhabitants in an enclosed aquarium. The dangerous reputation of this attractive sea cucumber is certainly based in reality

sea cucumbers have a variety of defenses that are generally tried before they resort to a general release of their toxic chemicals for defense. In general, it is only when a sea apple is extremely stressed that they will actually release the toxic chemicals that are capable of wiping out an aquarium, and many people have had one of these animals die in their tanks without any evidence of toxic release.

Furthermore, there are many animals that we commonly keep in our tanks (in particular some sponges and zooanthids) that have much more potent chemical defenses than do sea apples. So, basically the main reason that sea apples are potentially dangerous to a reef aquarium has less to do with their chemical defenses than with the fact that they move around and are more likely to meet an unpleasant end in our reef tanks than an equally toxic sponge or soft coral.

 

[nm reef]

...more disturbing quotes...
In addition to the other signs of stress that I mention in my previous articles, the most drastic response a stressed cucumber can make is to expel its Cuvierian tubules. The tubules of Cuvier are a series of long, spaghetti-like tubes leading off the hindgut – the cucumber equivalent of a colon – at the base of the respiratory tree – the sea cucumber equivalent of gills. The Cuvierian tubules are expelled by rupturing the hindgut, and this dramatic defensive ploy is almost always accompanied by the release of a soup of defensive chemicals that are likely to seriously impact, and potentially wipe out an enclosed tank

I do want to say something about the dire warnings that often appear on the web about ever adding a sea cucumber to an aquarium. While I will repeat that it certainly is possible for a sea apple to kill tankmates if sufficiently stressed, I have often included a sea apple in my own tanks without any problems. If proper precautions are taken to ensure that the sea apple is not damaged by a pump intake or overflow, chances are very slim that you’ll ever see any evidence of the toxicity of these animals. In my experience, reports of “cuke nukes” most often occur when the tank is small, runs an undersized (or no) skimmer, does not use or regularly replace carbon, or when the tank is not checked on a daily basis (such as when someone goes away for vacation and has a friend look after their tank).

Sadly, I have had a number of sea cucumbers (including sea apples) meet an unpleasant end in my aquariums over the years, and have never suffered a wipe out from any of these unfortunate events. I attribute my “luck” with sea cucumbers to catching the problem early, doing extensive water changes and increasing skimming and carbon use to remove the toxins as quickly as possible. If any large animal, such as a sea cucumber, dies in an aquarium and is not immediately dealt with, it will cause problems with water quality. I suspect that because cucumbers do not move around very much, and few people know exactly what to expect in terms of their behavior, many people may miss a dead animal simply because they do not know what to look for.

 

[nm reef]

More...
sea apples continue to have a relatively low rate of success in captivity. In fact, a recent poll of aquarists on the internet suggested that very few people had kept one of these animals alive for 3 years or more. Estimates of the first age of reproduction for many sea cucumbers is on the order of 4-5 years old, and many cucumbers have been found to live for 35 years or more in nature (e.g., Herrero-Perezrul et al. 1999). Given a potential lifespan of decades, our failure to keep these animals alive for any reasonable length of time in captivity is very discouraging.
Just wanted to mention the source of the quotes posted above...
AQUARIUM INVERTEBRATES by ROB TOONEN, Ph.D.
I'm sure a search on-line will locate the entire article.
Based on articles like this one...and countless stories about devestating effects from sea apples dieing in closed systems I personally think I'll avoid them. But to each their own I suppose!

 

[bonermeister]

I wouldn't touch a cuke with a ten foot poll. Buying a cuke would be like buying generalized anxiety disorder and a shrink.

 

[bigmac]

Originally posted by RyeBread
do you really think that I would chance killing off thousands upon thousands of dollars in merchandise if a Sea Apple dies on me?
depends on whatcha got..............when mine died it killed all the fish in a matter of minutes. If your not around to fish out all the dead stuff (if there are any) then the spike will probably kill everything else.

 

[ryebread]

All true.
I think I will stick with my stance to stay away from ordering Sea Apples.
The bad thing is actually getting the people who ship you things to understand........I ordered 5 Heiniocus Butterflies the other day and I recieved 4 Heiniocus and 1 Moorish Idol.

 

[timsedwards]

Hi Rye,
I was stupidly sold one when I first started out in the hobby by a rogue LFS, it lasted a year in what were appawling conditions! Ironically it died whilst the LFS were looking after it when I was on holiday.
I would stay clear, their beauty is not worth the risk!
Tim.

 

[bang guy]

Ophiura will probably have the most reasonable answer. I still believe that they have the potential to quickly wipe out all the vertebrates in a tank.