Blue Tuxedo Urchin

[Gordi]

Hi again, I'm expecting delivery of a Blue Tuxedo Urchin tomorrow and, as I usually do after a beer or two, forgot to research it before clicking"buy it now".
So the question is will it actually eat algae off the rocks (where he's needed) or will he be like the rest of the inverts and avoid eating off there?
It's almost like they're scared of hurting their feet (if they had any)!
The only exceptions are the hermits who will clamber over the rocks to eat algae off the corals but they don't seem to touch the stuff on the rocks.
I'm going to need another toothbrush soon!!!!

 

[LeftyReefer]

I have a blue tux urchin coming in today too!
Never had one before so I can't help much though.

I actually got one hoping it would eat some of the algae on my sand bed. My rocks are fine, but my sand bed has a few areas of some type of turf/film algae. I ordered a blue tux urchin and a fighting conch. hoping one of them goes after the algae for me.

hoping some others can chime in with some good tux urchin tips!

 

[Squidward]

They are great! They will eat pretty much every algae including your coraline.

 

[Joe31415]

They are great! They will eat pretty much every algae including your coraline.

They'll take it further than that. They'll eat right into the actual rock. I can always tell where mine is by the exposed dry rock and all the rock dust under it.
Plus, fun fact, they apparently eliminate their waste via the top of their head (head?). I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't this.

 

[HK180]

Mine decimated my coralline before eating actual turf algae/GHA (although I only had a couple of small patches at the time). They also love to eat oysters, weirdly enough.

 

[Joe31415]

Mine decimated my coralline before eating actual turf algae/GHA (although I only had a couple of small patches at the time).

When I got mine, I had very little, if any coralline at the time, but every surface of my tank was absolutely covered in algae. I was spending about an hour 3 or 4 times a week picking it out by hand and hardly making a dent. Granted, the ugly stages finally starting to decline helped, but that urchin could do a lot more work that I could. I'd come home and find an entire rock or pane of glass nearly spotless.
I'm sure it's eating coralline now that there's some in there to eat, but it doesn't appear to be specifically targeting it.

 

[GardenofZoas20]

I have several captive bred in my tanks and have found them to be great additions to the CUC and the most attractive of the urchins available. They do clearly prefer the coralline, but generally will clean down to the bare rock in areas. The only slight caution is they will pick up snails and frags and take them for unwanted rides, so I frequently check and 'rescue' whatever they've taken.

 

[rd62rdstr]

I had a beautiful blue tuxedo urchin and the bought a short spine urchin from my LFS. The next day I caught them together and thought perhaps babies? But after a few hours they hadn’t moved. I then thought maybe they were stuck together like Velcro? I went to separate them and found that the short spine had eaten half way into the tuxedo’s shell and devoured him. So word of caution, don’t mix them.

 

[Gordi]

It sounds ideal for my tank! Can it be handled if I need to move it??

 

[Mhamilton0911]

I have a blue tuxedo as well and you can literally see the clean mowed path behind it. I have coralline but it hasn't seemed to target it, just mowing around the tank.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

They do great work, urchins are good grazers

 

[Gordi]

I had a beautiful blue tuxedo urchin and the bought a short spine urchin from my LFS. The next day I caught them together and thought perhaps babies? But after a few hours they hadn’t moved. I then thought maybe they were stuck together like Velcro? I went to separate them and found that the short spine had eaten half way into the tuxedo’s shell and devoured him. So word of caution, don’t mix them.

Hi. I didn't mean I liked what it did! Just like and appreciate the warning!!!!

 

[Lyss]

Hi again, I'm expecting delivery of a Blue Tuxedo Urchin tomorrow and, as I usually do after a beer or two, forgot to research it before clicking"buy it now".
So the question is will it actually eat algae off the rocks (where he's needed) or will he be like the rest of the inverts and avoid eating off there?
It's almost like they're scared of hurting their feet (if they had any)!
The only exceptions are the hermits who will clamber over the rocks to eat algae off the corals but they don't seem to touch the stuff on the rocks.
I'm going to need another toothbrush soon!!!!

One (two-part) Q: What kind of algae is on the rocks, and what inverts won't go there? I ask b/c I had green cyano on my sand a while back and my trochus snails stopped going on the sand b/c they didn't like it -- once it was cleared up they started traveling on the sand again.

 

[muzikalmatt]

It sounds ideal for my tank! Can it be handled if I need to move it??

I have a pincushion urchin but they are very similar to tuxedos. I occasionally have to pick mine up and move it. You want to do it fairly quickly though. Once they sense they are being grabbed they use their spines to latch on to whatever they can and they can be difficult to move at that point without damaging them. In general though I just let him do his thing. Occasionally he'll knock over or pick up frags, but I don't really mind it.

 

[MillennialReefer]

They are the greatest algae grazers of all time! Definitely one of the animals I would have in any tank I set up. I will say though with regards to GHA, mine does not touch the algae that's more than 1 in long. It's as if it doesn't like/know how to eat it? So I do have to manually remove any long strands of algae by hand.

 

[hllb]

It sounds ideal for my tank! Can it be handled if I need to move it??

If you need to, yes. I wear gloves. You have to very slow pull them off (basically convince them to release their grip LOL). Then it'll likely attach to your hand or glove, and it'll take a while to get it off that too.

I just got a tuxedo a couple of weeks ago but have had a Halloween urchin for a while. He didn't really eat any GHA when I had it. Love them anyway though.

 

[paradizecityz]

I just recently got 2 and can't believe I never got them before. Great algae eater and I can definitely tell where they've been with how clean my rock is afterwards lol

 

[Gordi]

Everyone seems really positive so that's good!!
Although I imagine mine will probably prefer Black Forest Gateau and I'll be no further forward!
Oops, just noticed my glass is half empty,

 

[hllb]

Everyone seems really positive so that's good!!
Although I imagine mine will probably prefer Black Forest Gateau and I'll be no further forward!
Oops, just noticed my glass is half empty,

Honestly, I've learned to get animals that interest you, rather than what you think they can do for you. Because you want to make sure you like them if they turn out to be jerks who don't behave as expected LOL.

 

[Gordi]

One (two-part) Q: What kind of algae is on the rocks, and what inverts won't go there? I ask b/c I had green cyano on my sand a while back and my trochus snails stopped going on the sand b/c they didn't like it -- once it was cleared up they started traveling on the sand again.

Don't really know what type of algae it is. Some red, some green, some hairy, some not.
All the inverts that are meant to be on the sand are doing their job, it's just the rocks.
And there's some algae on the glass which is really difficult to shift. Do urchins get on the glass??