flying4fish
New member
Hi All,
I've read a few threads on the internet about using sea urchins to help control algae in reef tanks, and in general people did not seem very favorable to the idea. But I have had a terrible algae problem ever since I attempted to set up a refugium and the algae in the refugium did not fare very well, releasing nutrients into my tank and causing a bloom I've been battling for months. I finally put a number of sea urchins in the tank to see if they might help. The urchins have done an amazing job of slowly cleaning my coral substrate back down to bare coral. Have a look at my pics. You can see the mat of algae on the uppermost piece of coral; the entire tank was like that when I put the urchins in the tank. Where you see bare white coral, that's where the urchins have done their job. They have been in the tank about 3-weeks, and I suspect they will have it completely cleaned in another couple of weeks. You can see the inroads they are making on the last big patch of algae.
The urchins do push things around a bit, but that is a small price to pay for getting rid of the algae! Once they're done I'll take out all but one or two (seven are in there now). I used a species of rock boring urchins, these are the urchins you see in the hollowed out depressions of rock and reef in very shallow water.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k2mao5fp1qm99rt/Urchin Work1-2.jpg?dl=0
I've read a few threads on the internet about using sea urchins to help control algae in reef tanks, and in general people did not seem very favorable to the idea. But I have had a terrible algae problem ever since I attempted to set up a refugium and the algae in the refugium did not fare very well, releasing nutrients into my tank and causing a bloom I've been battling for months. I finally put a number of sea urchins in the tank to see if they might help. The urchins have done an amazing job of slowly cleaning my coral substrate back down to bare coral. Have a look at my pics. You can see the mat of algae on the uppermost piece of coral; the entire tank was like that when I put the urchins in the tank. Where you see bare white coral, that's where the urchins have done their job. They have been in the tank about 3-weeks, and I suspect they will have it completely cleaned in another couple of weeks. You can see the inroads they are making on the last big patch of algae.
The urchins do push things around a bit, but that is a small price to pay for getting rid of the algae! Once they're done I'll take out all but one or two (seven are in there now). I used a species of rock boring urchins, these are the urchins you see in the hollowed out depressions of rock and reef in very shallow water.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k2mao5fp1qm99rt/Urchin Work1-2.jpg?dl=0
