S. Gigantea swallowed my spiny urchin. Bad new?

[bevoboy]

Get home and check on the tank and discover that my 10" gig has swallowed the urchin. In this pic you can see some of the spines sticking out of the nems mouth. The urchin was about 2.5" at the body.

Does this spell disaster? Will the nem survive this? Should I remove him from the tank before he nukes it?

signed - not a happy camper.

 

[Toddrtrex]

Granted this has only happened with my S. Haddonis, but they have eaten several urchins, and the only bad thing was a dead urchin, so I wouldn't worry too much.

 

[BonsaiNut]

Bad news for the urchin, LOL

As long as the anemone doesn't have pressure applied to it via a falling rock or really hard direct water flow (so that the spines perforate the anemone walls) it should be fine. Remember that anemones are like drawstring purses and they can inflate or deflate at will by changing internal water pressure. When they eat something sharp or pointy like urchins, snails, clams, crabs, etc, they just bloat up enough that their insides are not punctured or abraded.

 

[bevoboy]

Thanks for the feedback, folks. He apparently didn't much care for the taste of urchin and has begun the slow (and painful?) process of spitting him back out. Of course, all the spines are long gone as is, I suspect, the fleshy parts of the urchin.

S. Gigantea -1, sea urchin - 0.

 

[BonsaiNut]

He may have digested the tasty parts Urchin is kinda liquidy on the inside - not much there, really.