Good Urchin...Bad Urchin?

[jade2122]

This guy is a hitchhiker into my tank, only comes out at night. Anyone know if he is a reef safe urchin or not?

 

[lotus02]

My urchin is out more at night too.
Nice urchin you have sorry I can't say if it's good or bad.

 

[Jasonincuritiba]

kinda looks like a young pencil urchin (not reef safe)

 

[Medicine Man]

Its a Martha's sea urchin (Echinometra mathaei) that is reef safe. I have had one for about a year and causes no problems. They are herbivores. Just FYI pencil urchins are classified as "reef safe" but they will eat coraline algae.

 

[twon8]

i have a bunch of those, they seem to breed in the tank. only damage they do is knocking some stuff over. they do eat coralline and other algea

 

[Nanook]

[moved]

 

[uscharalph]

My LFS recommends an urchin in my tank, but I'm now sure I want things being rearranged. What are you people's experience?

 

[Medicine Man]

I personally have 5 urchins right now and love the work they do. The only urchin that I do not really recommend is the long spice black urchin. Only because they get so big and knock stuff over. Otherwise love them. Just go small. They grow quickly.

 

[Frick-n-Frags]

plus those long-spines will "gitcha" eventually when you aren't paying attention and grab for something and it's right around the back.

 

[Froggy]

I cannot possitively I.D. your urchin in the picture but I do highly recommend urchins in reef tanks as long as you have frags and other corals secured either by glue/epoxy or natural encrusting. They are real workhorses in the tank. I have an unidentified urchin that looks similar to Tuxedo urchins that is active day and night cruising the tank eating any algae (macro and micro ) it can find.

The olny drawback is if you like a lot of corraline. My urchin cleans the live rock down to a white appearance and you can definitely see the "road" he has been on. He also likes to decorate and carry around anything he can find that is not secured. He is a big helper in collecting old empty snail shells so I can just pull them off his back and remove.

 

[MarkGP]

Could be a rock boring urchin. I have one that comes out only at night and actually bores out small holes in live rock into larger ones...also eats coralline!

 

[phurst]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11087262#post11087262 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by twon8
i have a bunch of those, they seem to breed in the tank. only damage they do is knocking some stuff over. they do eat coralline and other algea

Anthony, if they're breeding in your tank, any possibility you could hook a local up