sea urchin eating the living rock to death

[nathan_unsane]

i have a sea urchin in a tank with half live rock and half reef rock which is not living yet... the sea urchin litterally cleans the rock white, it seems to me he eats even the good living organisms off the rock, should i be worried that he will eat my rock to death?

37 gal tank, with 30 pounds of live rock and 40 pounds of reef rock

 

[romunov]

Name "good organisms".
The behaviour is pretty common for some species of urchins. Your guys must really be hungry.

 

[gussy]

What kind of urchin? I have about 5 different ones in my 55 tank. Yes, they will eat the rocks until white...but it depends on the size of your tank and how many do you have. Unless you have too many that there is not enough food, the only downside is that the tank will look really white. With the ones that I have, the tank has reach an equilibrium of 80% white rocks and 20% not white all the time. The rocks are still "alive"...just white. At least you won't have to scrape coraline off your tank walls!

 

[SumpDiver]

Anybody Want a Couple of Urchins?

Anybody Want a Couple of Urchins?

Guys: I just ordered two Purple Urchins from Saltwater.com. The site shows the urchins to be somewhat reefsafe, I never thought about them eating the Coraline off my, very expensive Marshall Island Show Rock I just purchased. After stumbling accross this thread I'm a little concerned. I have about 30 pounds of premium purple, pink and green rock. How much damage do you all think two urchins could do in a 50 gal tank. Is there anything else I can feed them to keep them off my $10.00 a pound rock? I'll keep an eye on them, if this becomes a problem I supose I can just bag them up and take them to my LFS.:eek2:

 

[scarter]

lfs or white rock, that is the question

 

[SumpDiver]

I just e-mailed Saltwater.com and told them to keep the urchins. Thanks guys.

 

[Bebo77]

lol they live off the rock and clean it, eat algea and such... they wont kill your liverock...