Urchin Hitchiker Good or Bad?

[Axiomatic]

I have a 46 gal reef setup. It has been up and running for about 6 months. I brought my first frag of mushrooms last week. Now I have a black urchin in the tank. It is about the size of a dime. Is it safe to leave him in the tank or will it eat my coraline algae?

Any suggestion are appreciated!!!

 

[smy168]

do you have a pic? hard to go by just the color.

 

[Sk8r]

Best thing about urchins as algae eaters is that you can catch them a lot easier than you can catch a rabbitfish.

 

[Axiomatic]

Here are a couple of pics if the little guy.

 

[smy168]

That's a cool little urchin, looks like a garden variety to me, the concern would be if you havd a rock-boaring (sp?) urchin that would do some damage to the stability of your aquascaping.

 

[Axiomatic]

It looks like it's chowing down on my coraline (sp?)algae. I can tell everywhere that it has been om my LR. Looks like need to find something to do with him. Maybe I can trade him at the LFS.

 

[Krazy]

I turned mine into the LFS the other day for some credit.... I got sick of the white trails all over my LR and him picking up whatever he wanted and also knocking stuff over .... (pincushion urchin)