Time to lose the spiny urchin?

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Nickeleye

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Apr 13, 2004
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I've got a spiny urchin that came on my live rock about 7 weeks ago and it's alive and well... not to mention growing bigger. Last night I noticed under the actinic lights that some of the areas of my rocks had some white-ish looking highlights to them and disregarded it for the most part as sometimes colors change under actinic lighting. Then this morning when I woke up I found the urchin on my center rock, which came with some sorts of greenish coralline algae on it and the rock was looking very white compared to how it looked before and was looking very similar to the white patches I'd noticed all over my other rocks in the tank. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the urchin appears to be on a feeding frenzy and it's only a matter of time until it reaches the other side of the tank... in my case that could easily be in just a couple more hours. I really don't want to see my coralline algae dissapear just cause the urchin is hungry. So, is it time for the urchin to go? I was thinking of taking it to my LFS for store credit or a small trade... if I couldn't get either I'd give it up for nothing. I had no idea that the urchin would eat so much of the coralline algae. I'd noticed in the last week or two it'd been coming out of its shaded hiding spaces during the day so now I'm guessing it was doing that because it's looking for food. In any case, does anybody have any thoughts?

p.s. The urchin is probably about 3" in diameter now (including spines).
 
I have sometimes wondered whether I made a mistake by tossing the urchins that came with my rock. Then I read posts like this.

I'd say give it up to a good home if it's causing trouble.
 
I can never decide. My urchins are all in the FO tank, since I don't want them knocking around any corals However--the FO tank has just as much, if not MORE coralline algae than the reef. I think the urchins steady munching encourages it to spread faster--the little white tracks never stay long in my tanks, and it always looks really good. And, they will eat other algaes as well.

Edit: It's probably coming out now because it's figured out there is nothing in there to hide from. Mine was in a tank with no fish, used to hide, then came out any time. Then got moved into the FO tank, and now hides again--the trigger taught him that lesson.
 
Some Urchins can eat an amazing amount of coralline algae. If it is the black long spiny urchin, remember they are not just quills; but also may contain toxins.

Be carefull when handling it.

Ray
 
Well, today was moving day for the urchin. I was carefull when handling it and kept it in good shape. It seemed to survive the trip to the LFS and now the LFS is going to make 10 bucks off my donation. They wouldn't even give me a little store credit... oh well.
 
typical pet shop. For the most part, urchins do more damage than good in most tanks. This of course depnds on the species. The biggest thing that I do not like about them is the short spined urchins are very strong and will knock things over. Ever notice how a lot of rock has holes bored through it. That is the kind of damage urchins do. I now have a big scratch on the inside of a big plex tank due to an urchin knocking over a good size rock. Some of the urchins will eat more coraline than others.

BTW, the black long spined urchin that was mentioned, yes, hurts like a "female dog". Its the spines that you can not see very well that are the poisonous ones. Under a microscope, they have barbs face backwards and are designed to break off between each barb. Having one or six in your foot for a week is not something that I encourage :D

Also, the local name for urchins is "wana" pronounced vah nah.
 
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