Best reef safe urchin

[Marsh980]

Hi all,

What’s the best and most colourful reef safe sea urchin?

I’m looking to add one to my tank in around 3-6 months time and want to make sure I get the right one.

I know the pin cushion and tuxedo urchins are reef safe but are there any more colourful ones?

cheers

 

[DanConnor]

Halloween urchins are one

 

[X-37B]

Halloween urchins are one

I have a halloween and black tuxedo in my 120.
Make sure you have plenty of coralline for them to eat. They are coralline lawnmowers lol.
I move one between my 45 frag and 120 when needed.

 

[Marsh980]

Thanks guys, my tank is only 10 weeks old so have plenty of time to find the best one.

I have a 200 gallon aquarium, would you recommend just the one as I want to make sure there is enough food.

 

[Cell]

I love my blue tuxedo urchin. If you want more color, give it a zoa hat.

 

[ZoaAddiction81]

Blue Tux Always Working In Here

 

[jda]

I use Pincushins from the Florida keys. Cheap, hardy and effective. They are long lived unless you do something like treat your tank with an algaecide or let the N and P get too high. I get mine from ReefTopia.

 

[Bizzy bee reef]

I have a royal urchin it’s doing amazing

 

[muzikalmatt]

There are red tuxedo urchins and different color variants of pincushion urchins. I think there's also a rainbow urchin as well. I have a pretty standard pincushion urchin, but his colors are still pretty vibrant.

 

[andrewey]

+1 pincushion urchin for being technically reef safe as long as it has enough to eat. As far as not carrying around every rock/frag that's not glued down, that's another matter...

 

[muzikalmatt]

+1 pincushion urchin for being technically reef safe as long as it has enough to eat. As far as not carrying around every rock/frag that's not glued down, that's another matter...

Haha! Ain't that the truth! Urchins are definitely workhorses when it comes to eating algae, but they also love to pick up any frags that aren't glued down. Mine dropped a torch frag on my brain coral one night which caused some damage.

 

[jda]

You can put rubber bands on the bottom of that frag plug under the rack. It definitely helps.

If once found a pincushion carrying around one of my prized blue squamosas when it was still little. The squammy was open and stuff, but still freaked me out.

 

[kyleThatGuy]

I like Longspines they are black so no color but look very cool

 

[DJF]

+1 tuxedos! Here’s my punk rocker (he has a full head of hair now)

 

[VR28man]

I have a halloween and black tuxedo in my 120.
Make sure you have plenty of coralline for them to eat. They are coralline lawnmowers lol.
I move one between my 45 frag and 120 when needed.

This. IME, they ate all the coralline and gave GHA the opportunity to colonize the now white rocks. (they like coralline better than GHA, though they do do GHA pretty well too.

Awesome creatures though.

I love my blue tuxedo urchin. If you want more color, give it a zoa hat.

+1 tuxedos! Here’s my punk rocker (he has a full head of hair now)

How do you do this (and ensure it stays on the urchin)? :D

 

[X-37B]

This. IME, they ate all the coralline and gave GHA the opportunity to colonize the now white rocks. (they like coralline better than GHA, though they do do GHA pretty well too.

Awesome creatures though.





How do you do this (and ensure it stays on the urchin)? :D

Yes they eat alot of coralline but not much gha. My whole back wall and bottom is covered.
It grows fast in my system but they can put a huge dent in it real fast. Here is only 4 days worth of 1 urchins path through the coralline.
I like coralline but I leave them in there for a few weeks then back to the frag system.
I am after all growing corals not algae lol.
My sea hare keeps any gha at bay.

 

[Keithb22]

Have a couple of pencil urchin than cake in on some KP aquatic rocks and they are awesome. Like said earlier, they are absolute work horses. Anything in their way is fair game, I have noticed rocks either moved or just straight up bulldozed through lol.

 

[Vette67]

Thanks guys, my tank is only 10 weeks old so have plenty of time to find the best one.

I have a 200 gallon aquarium, would you recommend just the one as I want to make sure there is enough food.

I haves 180 with 2 rock urchins. I have had the urchins for more than 10 years and have never manually fed them anything. They munch on coralline algae all day long. So people are right in recommending that you have a healthy amount of coralline before getting urchins. Here’s mine eating a “bubble” of coralline. Also don’t clean your glass. I let the coralline grow wild on my 2 sides and the back of my tank, so the urchins have enough to eat.

 

[DJF]

How do you do this (and ensure it stays on the urchin)? :D

:) all I did was poorly glue gsp on a rock, the rest was all him... the first time I saw him with it (once I was done laughing) I snapped that shot... he has never dropped it so it must bring him some comfort or security which is fine by me. Urchins will absolutely test your gluing ability, part of their charm.

 

[BKLYN651]

Had my urchin for five years now. Favorite of my tank, moves all over and does not bother anything.