Lost my pincushion urchin and im not sure why?

David100 · Feb 24, 2023

(I MEANT TUXEDO URCHIN (Sorry for the confusion)

Im quite bummed out about this as I really enjoyed watching this little guy.

He was purchased about a month ago and was acclimated for about 2 hours, and was put into the tank. For the last 3 weeks, he has been all over the tank (It its FULL of hair algae), and suddenly a few days ago he just stopped. and was in 1 spot for 5 days or so. I thought it was weird but all his spines seemed fine and he was still a bright color. last night I was watching him and the flow of the tank seemed to blow him a few cm across the sandbed, and It looked like he didn't have anything on top like there was a hole. it was hard to see from the angle, He seemed to have all his spikes though and they seemed to be moving. So I went to bed, I came back down this morning and all the spikes are gone and he is certainly dead and I have no idea where I went wrong?,

Stocking:
x2 Clownfish (Semi aggressive (They like to bite my hand)
x1 Peppermint Shrimp
a handful or recently added CUC like trochus snails and nassarius snail and 3 red hermits

Params:
Salinity: 1.024
Ammonia - 0
Nitrate - 20 Its been at 20 for a long time and im struggling to get it lower but its stable
Nitrate: 0
pH:7.8
Phos: Im not sure at the moment as my kit is being weird but I think its above 0.1

I am about 4-5 days behind on my normal water change schedule of 20% a week, I was considering doing double this weekend to make up could this be the issue?

Other than that my main thoughts are some kind of PH or temp swing at night I am not aware of. How would I even test for this?

or my test kits are bad for something and something like nitrates are higher than I think and have killed him?

Any thoughts?

My fish seem fine, and the snails seem to be going ok, I haven't seen my shrimp in a few days but thats not normal, he has just molted recently, but he could have died too?.

Im still new to this hobby and I'm struggling horribly with hair algae, nothing is touching it, could it have been to much for the urchin?

I never finish anythi · Feb 24, 2023

Sometimes things die in our tanks for no known reason . . . pH is a little on the low side.

And if you got lots of hair algae the nitrate and phosphate will be higher than you think, because the GHA is also consuming it from the water column.

Look at getting a sea hare it will demolish the gha . I got a 75g that had hair algae and the sea hare wiped it out in less than a week .

Pistondog · Feb 24, 2023

Ime, urchins are very sensitive to salinity swings.

G Santana · Feb 24, 2023

I was skeptical at first when I bought my Urchin as 1 I never kept one before but 2 a lot of folks have had issues keeping them fed but I went ahead and got one and now two years later he is still kicking (much to my surprise)
I had one issue where he dropped a bunch of spines and that is when I started supplementing his feeding by insuring he got nori every so often and he recovered.
Don't be hard on yourself, he might have died for reasons well beyond your control.
If you really enjoyed him, get another and good luck.

Lenett · Mar 19, 2023

David100 said:
(I MEANT TUXEDO URCHIN (Sorry for the confusion)

Im quite bummed out about this as I really enjoyed watching this little guy.

He was purchased about a month ago and was acclimated for about 2 hours, and was put into the tank. For the last 3 weeks, he has been all over the tank (It its FULL of hair algae), and suddenly a few days ago he just stopped. and was in 1 spot for 5 days or so. I thought it was weird but all his spines seemed fine and he was still a bright color. last night I was watching him and the flow of the tank seemed to blow him a few cm across the sandbed, and It looked like he didn't have anything on top like there was a hole. it was hard to see from the angle, He seemed to have all his spikes though and they seemed to be moving. So I went to bed, I came back down this morning and all the spikes are gone and he is certainly dead and I have no idea where I went wrong?,

Stocking:
x2 Clownfish (Semi aggressive (They like to bite my hand)
x1 Peppermint Shrimp
a handful or recently added CUC like trochus snails and nassarius snail and 3 red hermits

Params:
Salinity: 1.024
Ammonia - 0
Nitrate - 20 Its been at 20 for a long time and im struggling to get it lower but its stable
Nitrate: 0
pH:7.8
Phos: Im not sure at the moment as my kit is being weird but I think its above 0.1

I am about 4-5 days behind on my normal water change schedule of 20% a week, I was considering doing double this weekend to make up could this be the issue?

Other than that my main thoughts are some kind of PH or temp swing at night I am not aware of. How would I even test for this?

or my test kits are bad for something and something like nitrates are higher than I think and have killed him?

Any thoughts?

My fish seem fine, and the snails seem to be going ok, I haven't seen my shrimp in a few days but thats not normal, he has just molted recently, but he could have died too?.

Im still new to this hobby and I'm struggling horribly with hair algae, nothing is touching it, could it have been to much for the urchin?

Hi David,
I just saw your post. I know how upsetting it is to lose any animals! I just Lost my urchin and now my red-banded shrimp as well! I hope your shrimp is okay! I can't help with that, because not sure what happened to mine and it was 6 years old and the shrimp was at least 2. IF I find out what caused them to die I will share.

I'm absolutely no expert and still learning, but I just wanted to share about the algae trouble I was experiencing. Like you, I was struggling with it and tried everything I could find. RODI filtering and many water changes, manual removal, blackout for a week, dipping the live rock in a hydrogen peroxide mixture and more. I wiped out my cleaner crew by finally using Algaefix. (Don't use it! It will deprive your inverts of oxygen). Nothing worked and the algae always came back with a vengeance. After months of constant fighting it I finally found something on Bryopsis. It looks like hair algae but it's not and will not respond to the normal reducing nitrates, phosphates and silicates, and lighting. After reading this and looking closely at the algae structure, I knew it was bryopsis. I tried the treatment for it and it was like magic! in 2 weeks the algae was gone!

I couldn't find a how-to on this site but this may help.
Check it out for information, but ask the experts on this site to be sure. This will help you know the difference between GHA and Bryopsis.

Bryopsis algae: 5 important things to know about the problem

Nothing is more frustrating than dealing with a problem algae and no problem algae are more frustrating than bryopsis algae, the scourge of the reef aquarium hobby. Table of contents Proper identification How bryopsis algae get into your tank Prevention How to keep pressure on it How to treat it ...

www.saltwateraquariumblog.com

FYI, My algae issue happened over a year ago and both my urchin and shrimp were fine during and after bryopsis treatment, so that's not what happened to them.

Just wondering, did you treat your tank with anything lately?

David100 · Mar 19, 2023

I am actually finishing up my rip clean as we speak the tank look phenomenal right now I’ll keep people posted on how the tank turns out in the next few days and weeks. Thank you for the info I’ll take a look!

hansonbr · Jul 17, 2023

David100 said:
(I MEANT TUXEDO URCHIN (Sorry for the confusion)

Im quite bummed out about this as I really enjoyed watching this little guy.

He was purchased about a month ago and was acclimated for about 2 hours, and was put into the tank. For the last 3 weeks, he has been all over the tank (It its FULL of hair algae), and suddenly a few days ago he just stopped. and was in 1 spot for 5 days or so. I thought it was weird but all his spines seemed fine and he was still a bright color. last night I was watching him and the flow of the tank seemed to blow him a few cm across the sandbed, and It looked like he didn't have anything on top like there was a hole. it was hard to see from the angle, He seemed to have all his spikes though and they seemed to be moving. So I went to bed, I came back down this morning and all the spikes are gone and he is certainly dead and I have no idea where I went wrong?,

Stocking:
x2 Clownfish (Semi aggressive (They like to bite my hand)
x1 Peppermint Shrimp
a handful or recently added CUC like trochus snails and nassarius snail and 3 red hermits

Params:
Salinity: 1.024
Ammonia - 0
Nitrate - 20 Its been at 20 for a long time and im struggling to get it lower but its stable
Nitrate: 0
pH:7.8
Phos: Im not sure at the moment as my kit is being weird but I think its above 0.1

I am about 4-5 days behind on my normal water change schedule of 20% a week, I was considering doing double this weekend to make up could this be the issue?

Other than that my main thoughts are some kind of PH or temp swing at night I am not aware of. How would I even test for this?

or my test kits are bad for something and something like nitrates are higher than I think and have killed him?

Any thoughts?

My fish seem fine, and the snails seem to be going ok, I haven't seen my shrimp in a few days but thats not normal, he has just molted recently, but he could have died too?.

Im still new to this hobby and I'm struggling horribly with hair algae, nothing is touching it, could it have been to much for the urchin?

Sometimes urchins just don’t make it. even when they do they don’t make it too long. if your parameters are good then then probably just hit and miss….we’re you treating the algae with anything? That could impact it?