What!!$300 snack

[HighDefAquaria]

“I noticed my red pincushion urchin had been in the same spot for a couple of days. In the past, I’ve seen an urchin get stuck and die as a result, so I decided to move him. After moving him, I discovered he had mowed through about half a frag of my TSA baby grail torch! I had no idea urchins could do this — I’ve seen them eat zoas, but never an LPS coral. This is making me rethink a lot of the random coral deaths I’ve had. Any recommendations on how to prevent this in the future?”

 

[exnisstech]

Any chance the coral was dying and attracted the urchin? I have 3 pincusions rather large and have not had them eat any coral but I don't keep euphylia.

 

[BryanM]

Prevention:

Remove urchin

Thats really the safest way.

Google what they eat, and assess if your tank is lacking in its typical diet, if it is, then the urchin is hungry and will continue to do "bad" things because of this.

I purchased a long spine urchin, was told it was reef safe. Maybe, maybe not, but it quickly grew the size of a volleyball, and I could barely get in my tank to do any sort of maintenance safely. I rehomed it. And it walked all over corals.

 

[HighDefAquaria]

Any chance the coral was dying and attracted the urchin? I have 3 pincusions rather large and have not had them eat any coral but I don't keep euphylia.

I did some research and the general take home is all urchins can eat coral if they are hungry and there’s not enough algae in the tank. The only thing I can figure out is I still have some algae in the tank so I’m not sure why he went for my coral. The scary part is he ate the skeleton and not as much the polyp.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

In the entire time I had an urchin in my tank, I never once saw him go for my corals. Have you tried supplementing nori sheets into your tank?

 

[keagan]

I did some research and the general take home is all urchins can eat coral if they are hungry and there’s not enough algae in the tank. The only thing I can figure out is I still have some algae in the tank so I’m not sure why he went for my coral. The scary part is he ate the skeleton and not as much the polyp.

If it scraped away part of the skeleton are you sure the skeleton wasn't exposed at all? Mabey a lost head with algae growing on the skeleton? That would attract the urchin and sitting on top of the coral long enough would kill it even if it wasn't eating the flesh.

 

[HighDefAquaria]

I did some research and the general take home is all urchins can eat coral if they are hungry and there’s not enough algae in the tank. The only thing I can figure out is I still have some algae in the tank so I’m not sure why he went for my coral. The scary part is he ate the skeleton and not as much the polyp.

If it scraped away part of the skeleton are you sure the skeleton wasn't exposed at all? Mabey a lost head with algae growing on the skeleton? That would attract the urchin and sitting on top of the coral long enough would kill it even if it wasn't eating the flesh.

It wasn’t the frag prior was in tact with no Algea visible on it. I had to pry the urchin off of it and the skeleton looks like someone took bone cutters to it.