Urchin Appreciation Thread/Reef Safe Urchins

TheDragonsReef · May 6, 2022

I can take some pictures of the scratches, if i remember correctly it was a pencil urchin. I havent had good luck with urchins. I love them but they always seem to cause some sort of problem for me. I tried a black long spine urchin in my 75, and all he wanted to do was eat the black silicone seems. Id knock him off and he'd go right back to them, i could feel the chunks hes was eating off it too.

SPS2020 · May 6, 2022

steallife904 said:
anyone notice these are becoming hard to find and if the LFS has them are a lot more expensive than they use to be???
I have had a tuxedo urchin for years in my 150. I want another but my LFS have not had any and said they are not coming in? Last time one did have one it was like 50 bucks!

$33 @AlgaeBarn

Tuxedo Urchins

A Young Reefer · May 6, 2022

my blue tuxedo and it’s new hat!

PeterEde · May 15, 2022

Found this little guy this weekend.
Hoping it's a tuxedo. Seems to have already stuck sand to itself

Saltyanimals · Jun 7, 2022

Anyone have concerns with the long spine ones puncturing say a bubble coral or meat coral? I can also see a jittery fish taking a quick jolt towards the long spikes.

PeterEde · Jun 8, 2022

Saltyanimals said:
Anyone have concerns with the long spine ones puncturing say a bubble coral or meat coral? I can also see a jittery fish taking a quick jolt towards the long spikes.

This urchin has an amazing ability to direct its spines to the point of having them all point in one direction.
I have speared myself twice on mine. They are sharp and it takes a second to realise it's happened.
I'm sure my fish have been hit once or twice. My foxface had what looked like a possible puncture wound that took some time to heal.

But they are fun to watch.
Mine is in a minireef 120 so is a bit cramped for it but I've had it since it hitch hiked in and was only a few millimeters in size.

Susan Edwards · Jun 8, 2022

Just got my first one. Even bought a viking hat for it. Think it needs to grow into it though lol's. When it is bigger, how do you remove what it is carrying if you don't want it too!

A Young Reefer · Jun 8, 2022

Susan Edwards said:
Just got my first one. Even bought a viking hat for it. Think it needs to grow into it though lol's. When it is bigger, how do you remove what it is carrying if you don't want it too!

You just carefully pull it

monkeyCmonkeyDo · Jun 8, 2022

Ok I will say I love urchins and think they are a good part of the cuc. They literally will strip the rock down to rock. Lol.
I've had the most success with the longspine and pencil urchins. The pencil ones seem to do the best acclimation wise to the tank seeing as I just plop em in and I haven't exp them eating any real coral. Yes they will eat micro fauna and anything in their path though.
The longspine I had to re home cuz it was the size of a vollyball and you really had to be careful around it in the 110g custom peninsula tank it was in. Lol!

Saltyanimals · Jun 9, 2022

PeterEde said:
This urchin has an amazing ability to direct its spines to the point of having them all point in one direction.
I have speared myself twice on mine. They are sharp and it takes a second to realise it's happened.
I'm sure my fish have been hit once or twice. My foxface had what looked like a possible puncture wound that took some time to heal.

But they are fun to watch.
Mine is in a minireef 120 so is a bit cramped for it but I've had it since it hitch hiked in and was only a few millimeters in size.

the bag the long spiny came shipped in was labeled venomous. Seems like maybe not at a high level because many folks like yourself have said they’ve been poked without any long term poisoning. Painful bee sting feeling but still least not dangerous.

I had bad luck when I dropped mine in couple days ago where the power head blew it into a carpet nem. I literally went in with scissors to cut many of the spines to free it. Hopefully this won’t have lasting issues for the long spine. Or the loose spines that the carpet continued to try and eat.
So no one has issues with it poking and hurting coral?

PeterEde · Jun 9, 2022

Saltyanimals said:
the bag the long spiny came shipped in was labeled venomous. Seems like maybe not at a high level because many folks like yourself have said they’ve been poked without any long term poisoning. Painful bee sting feeling but still least not dangerous.

I had bad luck when I dropped mine in couple days ago where the power head blew it into a carpet nem. I literally went in with scissors to cut many of the spines to free it. Hopefully this won’t have lasting issues for the long spine. Or the loose spines that the carpet continued to try and eat.
So no one has issues with it poking and hurting coral?

My first spiking caused some slight nausea and tingling in my finger.
Fortunately no spines have snapped off and stayed in me.
Just got another minor spiking this morning not watching where it was

Saltyanimals · Jun 13, 2022

My emergency haircut to save the long spine from being carpet nem dinner did not end in disaster. At least not yet as it's still alive and moving around. Doesn't appear to venture very far away from the rock that it's on, but maybe that's part of the stress of the haircut or still settling in after only a week. Maybe this will turn to be a maintenance exercise in keeping the urchin smaller with shorter spines. =) Half joking since I casually looked at some biology of the urchin and it doesn't appear to have any major tissue or nerves in the spines that may result in pain to the animal. I'm no expert so any biologists out there please chime in. If this is true, I rather trim if it gets too big in order to keep the animal in a 180G. I read fast growers so I don't want to have to rehome somewhere anytime soon. Hard to rehome a giant urchin anyways.

I also didn't see anyone chime in with deaths to spearing fish or puncturing coral yet, so will keep monitoring and report back.

SeeFu · Jul 13, 2022

are there any reef safe urchins that'll consume coralline algae?

Ghost25 · Jul 14, 2022

I'll update and say both my pencil urchins and Diadema turned out to be coral eaters. To be fair they ran out of algae, but something to keep in mind if your tank isn't big enough.

Saltyanimals · Jul 18, 2022

Ghost25 said:
I'll update and say both my pencil urchins and Diadema turned out to be coral eaters. To be fair they ran out of algae, but something to keep in mind if your tank isn't big enough.

I think like many tanks it will vary. There are countless stories of both of those that are reef safe. My Diadema commented above (still alive after I manually had to give it a hair cut weeks back) has been happily cruising the tank. I do see white-ish patches from where it's been suggesting that it's doing the coraline eating thing, but so far it has navigated around coral which is fascinating that it hasn't bulldozed everything in the path.

Some people complain that they don't like the white patches again their purple rock, but IMHO it actually looks interesting. Gives the rock more depth with the white-ish patches vs deep purple rock. Personal preference, but something that I did notice as I've been monitoring the health from the haircut. I do have larger 6' system so enough rock not to be impacted by a single coraline eating urchin.