Sea urchin Yes 0r No

[Silverado]

I have a sea erchin that has appeared in my tank as a hitch hiker of some live rock I purchased. Should I leave him in there, or remove him?

I do have a reaf tank.

 

[roons]

id pull em but thats me

 

[zatlinrf]

Roons, I am curious about this topic as well. Could you give us your reasons for removing it? Thanks

 

[PoukieBear]

It depends on what kind of sea urchin it is. Can you get a picture of it?

Some urchins are OK for a reef, but most are not.

 

[Silverado]

Heres a photo

 

[Amphiprion]

I would not toss it immediately. Keep an eye out for any deviant behavior. I think the most common problem you might find is that they are fully capable of knocking rocks or corals over. Some others seem to be indifferent as to the surfaces they feed upon, chewing rock and coral alike in a defined path.

 

[unsane]

I have a baseball sized pencil urchin in my reef w/o incident. Likes to eat coraline, which I have plenty of right now.

 

[fareforce]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6673998#post6673998 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Amphiprion
I would not toss it immediately. Keep an eye out for any deviant behavior. I think the most common problem you might find is that they are fully capable of knocking rocks or corals over. Some others seem to be indifferent as to the surfaces they feed upon, chewing rock and coral alike in a defined path.

Why would you toss it? I have 4 of those in my tank, and they have been there for the past 6-7 months. I havn't had any problems.

Well, I guess the only problem is that they are getting quite large (approx 4-5" in diameter), and I am going to get rid of one or two of them.

 

[ratherbediving]

I have three of those in my 55-- they are great algae eaters. The coralline they eat seems to grow back pretty fast.

I am thinking about getting rid of one if my LFS will take it-- they are starting to get pretty big as well.

 

[SumoBlenny]

Cute urchin. I used to have two pencil urchins in my tank, but moved one out because it got too big and started bouldozing all of my small rocks and corals over. They are GREAT algea eaters. If I were you, I wouldn't get rid of it until you know that it is going to cause a problem in your tank. (-:

 

[stljk]

I have had one in my 55g for 4 years that looks just like yours. It hasn't grown any bigger than a golf ball in that time and just cruises through the tank cleaning up most everything. Haven't seen it touch the polyps or mushrooms and with the rock set up so that there are gaps and tunnels and such, there are no problems with anything getting knocked over either.

 

[supertech3]

I would not get rid of him, mine has not caused me any problems and he was also a freebie hitchiker.

 

[dntx5b9]

Grow them and if they get too big, then yummy Uni!

 

[TekCat]

Uni love them!

 

[capefear]

leave him alone

 

[KingDiamond]

The only probem I have seen from urchins is when they spawn. They can turn your water the consistancy of milk, but a water change will take care of it.

Brad

 

[demetri1]

i had an urchin and he ate my clam

 

[dhnguyen]

Should be ok to leave that one in. Be aware though, urchins can and do knock over rockwork.

D.

 

[dhnguyen]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6693734#post6693734 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TekCat
Uni love them!

Yes especially with a bit of wasabi :lol:

 

[Paul B]

Leave it there. It will not hurt anything. I had an urchin collecting business and always have many of them in my reef.

The only probem I have seen from urchins is when they spawn. They can turn your water the consistancy of milk, but a water change will take care of it.

I had 24 of them spawn at once in my 100 gallon. My skimmer which has a 5 gallon waste compartment overflowed all over the floor. But I had a lot of urchins.
Paul