Injured pink velvet urchin

[juniorrocketdad]

Hello everyone so today we discovered my dads pink velvet urchin was upside down and being picked on and he lost a bunch of spikes, he's been in the tank for a long time and has been fine until now, we moved him to my 10 gallon quarantine for the time being, so now the question must be asked, will he make it and what can we do to help it at all, I will attach a picture

 

[juniorrocketdad]

He's lost more spines must looks like little black ones are growing in, is it possible he is like molting or something and there just wasn't enough cover in the main tank

 

[Calappidae]

Urchins will lose their spines in poor conditions, particularly high nitrates. They can recover, but that one doesn't look too good..

 

[juniorrocketdad]

So water change?

 

[Betta132]

Big water change, and test before you do. We need exact parameters to figure out if that was the issue.
Make sure it has plenty of algae and nori to eat in the QT, and do daily water changes if the urchin isn't tiny. A 10g is very small.
Urchins suffer from fluctuating salinity, could that be the issue?

 

[juniorrocketdad]

Definantly nitrates it was so much that it couldn't be read on the card, he has lost all of his spikes now, is he going to die

 

[Betta132]

If there are no spines left, it's probably already dead. Keep it separated and feed it nori, but expect it to probably die.
Also, figure out what caused such high nitrates, and fix it before they get that high again. After the water change, of course.