Gluttonus Urchin

[wds21921]

Dealing with a splurge of different algaes I decided to try something new (besides snails).
I decided on an Urchin since they seem to be indescriminate about the type of algae they consume.

To say it's gluttonus (sp?) is an understatement lol. I was hoping it would clean of some heavy areas of growth and boy did it. It literally eats it all right down ot the rock itself. The rock looks as thought it's been heavily scrubbed.

So far it's eaten some cyano (not a lot) even though it's actually not an algae, quite a bit of hair or widows algae, some coralline and doesn't seem interested at all, so far in the halameda. I'll keep my eye on that.

It sometimes takes two to three days in order to eat up and clean a 1"- 2" area. Hopefully at that rate I'll have a fairly clean tank in a matter of weeks or months naturally.

 

[MadTownMax]

What type of urchin is it?

 

[wds21921]

Good question Nick?

After pouring over several hundred photos on Google, apparently it's not always easy to tell except for a few common species.

It's got some of the coloring tendencies of the rock boring urchin but it's not done what they do. At the same time it also appears as though it's from either Hawaii or California (Pacific Coast region), I'm attributing this to what the urchins from that area look like in photos.

I'll post a pic of it tomorrow after I get home from work. Apparently there's about 6500 species and they've survived 20,000 years or more. Hopefully mine will remain healthy and not discard all his spines (these are short by the way), and become an obtuse Picasso basketball reject.

 

[wds21921]

Here are 3 pics of the Urchin. These aren't photoshopped or anythign so the colors are very accurate.

Pic1

<img src="http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g246/wds21921/P7280021.jpg">

Pic2

<img src="http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g246/wds21921/P7280020.jpg">

Pic3

<img src="http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g246/wds21921/P7280019.jpg">


Anyone who'd like to take a stab at Id'ing it is welcomed. I assume it's just a common urchin?

 

[wds21921]

The colors are as you see them.

Black on the body with white circle around the spines.

Spines, white to grey, to dark grey, to white tips.

 

[SerranidTerror]

The question is where can I get one?! (where did you buy yours) You know tell you the truth I almost never see sea urchins for sale. And I visit more stores than all of yous combined (I'm serious!)

But yeah sea urchins are regular lawn mowers. A great example is the kelp-urchin-sea otter relationship in the pacific. If sea otter numbers are down then urchin population booms. Because of the grazing activities of the urchins the kelp forest is basically cut down. Some pretty drastic things have been known to happen!

The rock boring urchins I was used to seeing in Hawaii were more or less pink not purple- but that doesn't really mean much. I guess the shape and spine length seems about the same. But i'm out of my comfort zone when it comes to echinoderms.

Has anyone had experience with the long spined black urchins? Those are the most common ones I've seen- just curious how well the do on algae. Also cool are the pencil urchins but the specimens i've seen in the area don't hold a candle to the ones I used to see in Hawaii. Anyone dealt with pencils before?

Oh and hi again forum. I'd figure i'd crawl out from under my live rock and say hi. Time for me to go hide in a pistol shrimp burrow *vanishes*

 

[wds21921]

I picked that one up at Just Fish in Glasgow, DE at the Fox Run shopping center (Rt 40).

I think it was like $11? Since my snail population varies and they seem to not really be able to keep up their appetites with the growth, I thought perhaps an urchin would make a dent? While it is a slow eater it's very efficient at cleaning off ALL the algae it comes in contact with.

This is my first urchin so my experience is extremely limited but from what I've read on other postings (long-spine black urchins), they're pretty verocious eaters and good at algae control. The only complaint I've seen is they're clumsy when it comes to loose rocks which they don't mind knocking over to get a good morsel.

One cool thing is it can wedge it's spines in any direction to attach itself to a rock. Today he was foraging through the crushed coral substrate with his mouth down and his spines sideways were wedged so tight I couldn't even budge him.

 

[wds21921]

Tonight after doing about 2 hours of acclimation for my new pieces (thanks GEBC ) I found a small baby urchin about 2 cm in width.

Apparently my adult Urchin is a 'she' and not a 'he' lol.
Not sure how many are in there now. I doubt they only produce one at a time otherwise they'd most likely not be around? "It" is in between some small rock so I can't quite get a pic of it but I'll try to later if I can manage to find it again.