Urchin brown marks?

Ling_Thing · Feb 8, 2019

I bought this purple short spine pincushion urchin from live aquaria last week and is currently in my coral only qt tank and I noticed past couple of days it’s developing these brown spots ? It’s very odd, here is a picture from his under side, and on top he only has one small brown spot. They are almost black in color. What do you guys think?

rkpetersen · Feb 8, 2019

Nice urchin. But that doesn't look good to me. May be losing tissue and structures at those darkened locations.
If it is necrosis or infection, I'm not sure there's any treatment. Not sure how antibiotics would affect an urchin. #reefsquad
Or it might recover. You'll probably know either way pretty quickly.

Ron Reefman · Feb 9, 2019

If you have a refugium with macro algae in it, I'd suggest you pull some of it and add it to the tank the urchin is in. Although I've had urchins in the past, they do not seem to do well in a very low nutrient DT. But I have kept 2 of them for over a year in my refugium full of Chaeto. BTW, just in case you didn't know, urchins tend to pick things up and carry them around... including coral and frags that are not glued down.