My tuxedo urchin died

[Hilltopreef90]

My tuxedo urchin died recently and I’m wondering if maybe it starved ? My tank is currently in a fallow period but I still add coral food and regular food once or twice a week to feed the corals and inverts left in the tank.
I’m not sure what the life expectancy or how old the urchin was but it was doing well and appeared healthy the last 4-5 months.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Starvation is chief reason followed by poor water quality, high nitrates and phosphate

 

[G Santana]

As my tank matured and there was less and less algae for mine to eat, I started to give my pincushion a small piece of nori once a week just because I feared he would starve.
I've had him close to a year now and only once during that time did he look bad and that was when he dropped a bunch of spines and that's exactly when I started to give him nori, he grew back the spines and seems to be back to normal.
I read that in nature they are pretty long lived 30 yrs or so, I hope that supplementing his diet of algae works.
Hope this helps

 

[Hilltopreef90]

As my tank matured and there was less and less algae for mine to eat, I started to give my pincushion a small piece of nori once a week just because I feared he would starve.
I've had him close to a year now and only once during that time did he look bad and that was when he dropped a bunch of spines and that's exactly when I started to give him nori, he grew back the spines and seems to be back to normal.
I read that in nature they are pretty long lived 30 yrs or so, I hope that supplementing his diet of algae works.
Hope this helps

That was my next question, I plan on getting another and wondered if I can feed it the seaweed sheets I’d bought for my fish that I no longer have, how much and how often should I give it some ?

 

[G Santana]

That was my next question, I plan on getting another and wondered if I can feed it the seaweed sheets I’d bought for my fish that I no longer have, how much and how often should I give it some ?

Believe me, it will eat all you give it. I take a 1/4 sheet, cut it in strips and place it in his path, really easy as he spends alot of time on the glass.
Good luck.

 

[ShakerBreaker]

That was my next question, I plan on getting another and wondered if I can feed it the seaweed sheets I’d bought for my fish that I no longer have, how much and how often should I give it some ?

I put nori on a feeding clip while mine was in quarantine. he found it in about a day and pretty much never left that clip until I was satisfied with quarantine and added him to the tank. I just used the prepackaged stuff from Petco.

My personal experience is that he liked to work along the crack of the clip, so I put just enough so that I could see a green line around the clip every day while he was in QT.

Hope this helps, he is my first urchin, so I am just learning as well.

 

[Hilltopreef90]

I put nori on a feeding clip while mine was in quarantine. he found it in about a day and pretty much never left that clip until I was satisfied with quarantine and added him to the tank. I just used the prepackaged stuff from Petco.

My personal experience is that he liked to work along the crack of the clip, so I put just enough so that I could see a green line around the clip every day while he was in QT.

Hope this helps, he is my first urchin, so I am just learning as well.

I got my new tuxedo urchin yesterday, he arrived and was so tiny but the little guy went right to work, I’d also placed a small piece of seaweed on a clip near the bottom of the glass and this morning it was gone
Since he’s such a tiny little guy (he’s smaller then a frag pluand I’m sure there is some algae for him to eat how often should I give him seaweed to eat ?
I bought an aquacultured urchin and I’m hoping between that and taking care of the little guy properly he will grow and thrive

 

[ShakerBreaker]

I got my new tuxedo urchin yesterday, he arrived and was so tiny but the little guy went right to work, I’d also placed a small piece of seaweed on a clip near the bottom of the glass and this morning it was gone
Since he’s such a tiny little guy (he’s smaller then a frag pluand I’m sure there is some algae for him to eat how often should I give him seaweed to eat ?
I bought an aquacultured urchin and I’m hoping between that and taking care of the little guy properly he will grow and thrive

I think our urchins might be brothers! LOL

mine was also very small and I have only given him extra food once since I put him in the display. I think someone else commented, maybe in another thread, to watch if it is losing spines, that means it is starving. My metric right now has been watching how long it stays on one rock, it's been cruising around the structure it is on for about 3 days now, tells me it's not having to look too hard for food.

I figure, and I might figure wrong, that if it is hungry I'll see lots of movement around the tank in its search for food. If I see that I will most likely try to put some nori directly in its patch.