Tuxedo urchins eating only the "wrong" type of algae

[Fritz05]

As tuxedo urchins are often recommended to help with nuisance algae I want to share my experience with two of them, one blue and one red. They are in separate tanks, and I enjoy them and their sometimes weird behavior, so no regrets there. However, in one tank the urchin has arguably made the algae situation worse: As widely known, tuxedo urchins eat coralline algae. I can confirm that they do, a lot. It is not a problem for me per se, as I had more than enough covering my rocks (and back glass) entirely, which was also why I felt comfortable getting one, as I knew there would be food. I had no other algae in the tank with the red urchin, except a small spot with red gracilaria, which was rather pretty. So the urchin scraped parts of the rock clean off coralline (and ate the gracilaria), allowing green hair algae to grow on the rocks again. And it does not touch the green hair algae a bit... I am not sure what type it is, but it does not appear to be bryopsis (which they do not eat, as I know from web searches and the blue tuxedo urchin in my other tank). It is not a huge deal, but I did want to share for folks who want to buy tuxedo urchins for algae control. Mine have only eaten the "wrong" algae.

 

[Spare time]

Lol I don't like having urchins anymore because of this

 

[bushdoc]

I was thinking about making genetically engineered urchin which would only devour nuisance algae, but than I've realized that most reefers wouldn't buy GMO creatures

 

[Lavey29]

Do you like to eat the same thing everyday? Of course not and urchins like some variation too. I found hand placing them where you want them to work helps. I've had 3 in my tank for 2 years. They are great for me. Yes they munch some coralline too.

 

[ZoaAddiction81]

I love my Halloween urchin eats everything he finds on the rocks. Including carrying some snails from time to time.

 

[Rick's Reviews]

It's a tough decision to buy an urchin, alot of reviews say they are 'bulldozer' basically 'knocking off... Or even carrying' loose frags or ither

It all varies on tank size and algae issues in my opinion

These guys prefer to wear algae rather than eating so I would definitely research other methods of of removing gha