Purple Sea urchins

evelyn80

evelyn80

Guru at procrastinating
Aug 10, 2008
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ok so the other day i finallym got my lonmgnose hawkfish and ialso got a Purple sea urchin. I noticed today 4 of his needles fell out. He doesnt look sick, i mean hes active like crazy, checkin out the tank and everything, just hes lost 4 needles. is that supposed to happen or is it bad and something i should take care of? thx
 
Losing spines is usually a bad sign and can be the start of decline. Sometimes it takes a while to really kick in. There are times that they recover, but it's usually a bit too late. This sort of thing is caused by improper acclimation and the resultant osmotic damage--which can and often does happen before it even makes it into your hands. In any case, you should drip acclimate them and do so carefully.
 
oh so basically hes a goner? dang i thought id acclimated him right, i floated himn 20 minutes, added a bit of tank water, floated for another 10 and repeated that 6 times
 
Sometimes they recover and yours may just be some damaged spines, so hope for the best. The most I can tell you at this point is to watch it. If the spines start falling out more and then begin to "wilt" (basically, all the spines turn downward and slump. They're still rigid, but it's like the urchin can no longer hold them up), then you need to get it out of there.
 
Same but different topic for you Amphiprion, does your advice apply to ALL urchins or the purple specifically? I have a black longspine that has been losing spines (and spines turning white) from day one... almost a year ago, and the sucker is still alive and moving around the tank like normal, even though I must have 100+ spines in my sand now. It was a free bee, not something I ever wanted, and while I will give it a home, I wasn't going to lose any sleep if it didn't make it. How long do these things take to croak and is it possible for them to "shed" spines that are too big for their environment?
 
That's not normal, unless something is causing it to continually break spines. When a spine is lost from the base, it is an open wound into the body cavity. They turn white when the thin epithelial tissue that coats them sloughs off. Either way, they should never regularly lose (edit: whole) spines. I had a Mespilia globulis that had similar symptoms that took a while to die. I had it for about 3 years and it started losing spines maybe a year or less before it died. I guess it finally couldn't take any more or it got infected.
 
Thanks for the info.. I know absolutely nothing about urchins myself. Some are nice looking but overall they never interested me, especially after getting stuck a few times by long spines at the LFS.
 
sorry for the DP but it seems his spines have turned white now..... poor creature i feel so bad. its odd though he still runnin(metaphorically) around and acting normally... anyways im interested in aquireing more of these, but i want to leanr how to acclimate them best, to give them the best chance in my tank. Ive alwats loved inverts and with my new longnose hawkfish, shrimp and snails are no longer an option.
 
Get him out of the tank now. Sea Urchins release toxins bad enough to kill everything else in the tank and quickly....ours just died tonight and he looked exactly like what you are saying. One of our clownfish just died and the other is probably not going to make it through the night (I'd be very surprised) and the other fish are looking not so great.... :'( Only fish that are doing ok is the one fish in the tank we didn't like and the bristle worm we have been trying to eliminate for ages... Go figure...
 
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