Pink Lady Urchin (Salmacis sp.)

[marv1111n]

Hi guys, does anyone have experience keeping pink lady sea urchins? Mine won’t come off the sand bed. It’s been staying down there ever since I got it back in February. It was supposed to clean my live rock from algae but seems much happier sifting through sand all day and night long. The only time I ever saw it up on the rocks was when I introduced it to the tank. I do feed a lot, and the sand in my tank is probably quite full of detritus (I siphon it whenever I do a water change, but I do those quite irregularly—whoopsie), but I thought they would eat algae.



Did anyone else make the same observation with theirs? Thinking of adding a tuxedo urchin soon, if this little pink guy prefers the sand over the rocks. I just need something that mows down my algae and enjoys doing so, because I don’t enjoy it.

 

[BryanM]

My guess is that it has plenty to eat on the sand bed. If it gets it clean enough, she'll probably start rock crawling.