Urchin ID?

[Rovert]

Can someone ID this for me? I was told by my LFS (which is usually very good) that it's reef safe, so I figured it'd be worth a try. They were clear about the fact that it is venomous. What else can you tell me about this fella?

Sorry about the lousy shot, he headed for a hole in the rocks as soon as I put him in the tank, and hasn't come out yet.

 

[billsreef]

The shot is bit fuzzy to be sure, but if it looks like the picture below it is commonly referred to has a Hat Pin Urchin.

 

[Rovert]

Yep, that's the critter. Thanks!

 

[Grunt]

Nice looking urchins.

Cheers

 

[Drix]

I'd make sure he doesn't munch on anything too expensive, urchins are usually questionable at best with reef capatibility. Matter of fact the only ones I know of that don't eat coral are Longspine sea urchins- They have an affinity for coralline algea and not coral itself.

 

[Bebo77]

yeah... my longspine is a beast when it comes to coralline...

 

[Rovert]

So far, so good, he's behaving himself.

There was a claim some time ago that urchins actually HELPED the growth of coralline, because coralline spores would be released as they fed. Any truth to that?

 

[finsurgeon]

I have 5 urchins of different types in my reef. The first urchin I got left tracks ground off the purple, and I took him back. A few months later, I decided to try a very small long-spine. He left smaller tracks, but grew pretty fast. Eventually I stopped noticing tracks and have gradually added more urchins up to the current 5. I believe strongly that they spread the spores of the coralline algae and do no harm - other than knocking anything over that is not bolted down.