Tuxedo Urchin problem

[ghill]

My tuxedo urchin just made a meal of my Fireworks Clove Polyps. Anyone else ever have this problem?

 

[SnazzyUrchin792]

Not with clove polyp specifically, but with other soft corals (mainly GSP)

 

[TurboTang]

Not with clove polyp specifically, but with other soft corals (mainly GSP)

What? Really? I'm ordering 10 of them tomorrow if they really eat gsp. I had one for 2 years and it seemed to avoid the gsp - got lots more now that I would like "trimmed"

 

[Üter]

My tuxedo urchin just made a meal of my Fireworks Clove Polyps. Anyone else ever have this problem?

Yup

 

[joeoliver]

Whoa. Never crossed my mind. I have two tuxedos and they've left my corals alone. Probably because they have plenty other stuff to eat. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[NefariousAquarius]

My tuxedo urchin just made a meal of my Fireworks Clove Polyps. Anyone else ever have this problem?

Yes, my blue tuxedo urchin named “bandit” has eaten my firework clove polyps 3 times now. Luckily I have a separate tank to let them heal up whenever he does this.

 

[afternoondelight]

My tuxedo has done it twice! Woke up this morning and it looks like someone went through my fireworks clove polyps with a weed whacker! It popped back and flourished the last time he did it and honestly it’s probably not the worst thing, because the clove polyps have moved to an adjacent piece of rock work and are in the potential of getting out of hand. He is in the sump in “timeout.” (Again)

 

[afternoondelight]

The urchins ended up wiping my clove polyps out-out! Somebody also ate a beautiful colony of seduction zoas. I know who ate the clove polyps, but the jury is out on the zoas….

 

[Tahoe61]

Yes. Mine also munches on my Xenia. The Urchin has never decimated the coral, but I do feed the Urchin strips of Nori ever couple days.

 

[afternoondelight]

I have thrown a couple of my urchins in timeout (in the sump) when they are caught red-handed being bad. They do good work down there….but will run out of food in fairly short order so I have to keep tabs on them and move them back when food gets scarce. They sometimes behave for a while after I put them back in. One of my pin cushion urchins and one of my tuxedos are notorious hermit crab and snail picker-uppers and I am constantly rescuing guys he is hauling around on his back.