Are urchins good idea?

[plancton]

I've tried many algae grazers with bad results, basically snails just don't seem to work.
Only sea hares, but their lifespan is unknown.

What about urchins?

Will they move my frags?. I've heard they also eat coraline, does that mean the tank will be coraline free or they help spread coraline by munching it?.

Do they eat red cotton candy algae?

Will they damage acans?

 

[Mr. Brooks]

All I know is that I had one in my tank that completely removed all the coraline algae on the right side of my tank in about 24 hours. Got rid of him right away. It was a long spine urchin.

 

[brycerb]

I have 3 in my 225, they only eat green algea.

 

[ChadTheSpike]

I like them But they generally do munch of coraline.

 

[Hiker_]

I think they're great for a tank. They eat tons of algae and look cool too. It's neat to see the path the leave on the LR when they're done eating. The rocks look clean.

 

[capnfritz]

Did'nt like the way a LS urchin devestated all my coraline. Never ate any red either.
Rocks looked barren.

 

[TXCrawdad]

I have a blue tuxedo urchin that does not do any damage to my coraline that I have seen. But does each algae.

 

[jeepguy242]

ive got a tuxedo in mine, he eats some coraline, but mostly green algae, he knocks over any frag not glued down, and even picked up a small metalic green ricordia that i have not been able to find since he decided to drop it.

with that said, i think he makes the tank look more natural, and i would not trade him for the world, i had originally got him to clean up the year of neglect my 55 got when i was going through a nasty divorce (no husbandry comments please) and i wanted to clean up the hair algea befor i moved everything over into a 125, well he has done exactly that, cleaned it up spotless, and only started eating the coraline after the hair was alredy gone, the coraline he does eat is not completely cleaned and grows back very quickly.

long story short (too late for that LOL) i would reccoment getting one!

 

[kraut3253]

I thought urchins only ate algae, but a pencil urchin that I had in my tank had a strong preference for GSP. Too bad that I couldn't train him to only eat away the GSP that was encroaching on other corals.

 

[dcombs44]

I had a pencil urchin. Didn't bother the coralline, but he always bulldozed corals and rocks.

I moved him to the sump and he tried to use my return pump to get back to the display. Didn't go well for him.

 

[KMP]

my tuxedo urchin grabbed a frag of tubs blues in passing today that is as big as he was.

 

[Hurdicuss]

I have had success with long spines in the past with (some types of) nuisance algae removal. I do think mine munched on coralline also. I have one now that seems to nip on tips of my efflo and encrusting monti's.. it shall soon be re-located to the fuge. I do not think they are bad additions to the display though. Typically you can find bangai cardinals hanging around in the spines (especially smaller ones) and that's pretty cool to see.

 

[AaronReeph]

+1 on the tuxedo urchin. Mine does pick up ALL sorts of rubble and does eat some coralline but I've never notice my coralline population decline. He does a great job cleaning and is a real eye catcher.

 

[jdargonaut]

I bought a used acrylic tank that came with a short spine and a long spine. temporarily housed the short spine in my 29gal and it started to rapidly eat the coraline algae so I traded it in to the LFS. Also, with the acrylic tank drained, I saw that it was absolutely covered in tiny swirly scratches and I'm almost positive they're from the urchins (the scratches are not in the corner areas where the urchins couldn't get to). With water in the tank the scratches are not too noticeable.

 

[Crush Coral]

Can tuxedo urchins climb and clean the glass walls of a tank?

 

[ludnix]

Tuxedo urchins can definitely climb walls of the tank and clean it, usually the glass is clean enough for them to not bother, but if you have a dirty back panel they will easily work on it.

I've had tuxedo urchins, pin cushion urchins and long spine urchins. The long spine got very large very quickly and started munching on my encrusted SPS corals. The pin cushion was fine until it fell into an anemone and was eaten. The tuxedo is still doing good after almost 2 years. It has not grown significantly and remains about 2" in diameter. It eats coralline as well as any other algae it can. It doesn't decimate the coralline in my tank though, it hardly makes a dent.

 

[ChadTheSpike]

Pencil urchins are omnivores and tend to munch on other things...

I thought pencil urchins would be great for my SHs so I researched them heavily, but was steered away when I found this out.

 

[Hiker_]

I take back all the good stuff I had to say about urchins. My short spine killed one of my acans last night. I came home from work and the urchin was on top of the acan. I pulled it off and all that was left was dead tissue. I fed the acan before I went to work and it was thriving like usual. Last week it was on top of my porties and now it has a dead spot. This is the 3rd coral the urchin has hurt of killed. No more urchin for me.

 

[TheSurgeon]

Ive had various urchins. The pencil urchins I had, 1 would snack randomly and the other was a model citizen. I had 3 urchins in a 90 and still had decent coraline growth, and they kept all the other algae's in check. The third urchin is a rock urchin. He is great. Stays fairly small, doesnt bother anything, occasionally is visible but hides during the day mostly. It makes it fun when kids are around and you ask them if they can find him. He's great at hide and seek lol.

Only weird thing I had with urchins was my two pencil urchins loved to eat the stalk of frogspawns. Wouldnt harm the corals themselves or be anywhere near the heads, but would basically strip mine the old stalk and eventually eat through it. It was bizarre.

 

[ritter6788]

My new pink pin cushion urchin hasn't eaten anything but coralline algae. There is a growth of hair algae and it hasn't touched it at all.