Anyone have a fish get poked by an urchin?

flairbrtndr

flairbrtndr

AC Members
Mar 24, 2010
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North Richland Hills, Texas
I just watched my batfish get poked by my long spined urchin during feeding time. The batfish was going after some jumbo mysis when he ran into the urchin, twice. lol I guess he didn't learn the first time. Now he's got what looks like two poke marks where you can see the purple spines and discoloration around the wounds. My question is how lethal are urchin stabs to fish? Is my batfish a gonner?
 
don't let it get infected. that'll kill him.
 
Sorry no one replied... I honestly wouldn't even have a guess myself. The best guess I could make would only be that it depends on the location and depth of the wounds, which isn't really helpful. Have any pix of the wounds?
 
The kind of urchin matters as well. Urchins can release toxins which generally are just irritating to most animals; infection is definitely the larger risk. Are you saying the spines actually broke off and are embedded in the batfish? If so, I'd make every effort to remove them, or the punctures are much more likely to become infected. Otherwise, monitor the batfish, make sure it continues eating, and be ready to move it to a hospital tank and treat with antibiotics if it does get an infection.
 
Well I've been keeping a close eye on him... he never lost any appetite or acted as if it even bothered him at all. Now it seems as his wounds are completely healed up. You can't even see where the original punctures were. I guess he's a strong one! The urchin that poked him is a black long spine urchin as far as I know.
 
Glad the fish is ok.

I had a burr fish that would constantly bump into an anemone that was in the tank. He never figured it out, and I finally removed the anemone rather than have the fish be injured all the time. I think sometimes we mix fish and inverts/corals that don't ever encounter each other in the wild with the result that they don't know how to handle the other...how to avoid injuring themselves inadvertently.
 
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