Disappointing pencil urchin. Now what?

[JoJosReef]

Pencil urchin I've had for a few weeks doesn't touch GHA, which was the primary reason for getting one (and bc I understood them to be hardier than tuxedos). GHA is now in a fast growth rate. Tank info below, and pick after lights out--you can see the GHA taking over on the top rocks:

So what now? Another urchin or swap urchins? Turbos? Sea hare? Chiton?

I'm currently pulling out as much as I can tweeze with aquarium tongs every few days. Losing battle. Not too interested in making some sort of algae scrubber or trying to drop nutrients to nil--I have macro that need the nutrients and don't want other problems with low nutrients.

Sand bed and lower rocks are pretty clean. Conches doing great work there.

Toying with idea of using hydrogen peroxide spot treatment, using the nipple of a baby bottle connected to aquarium pippette for targeted patch treatment--worried this will kill all my coraline.

Any ideas welcome!

Tank: Fluval Evo 13.5g
Rocks: mix of TBS gulf live rocks and CaribSea LifeRocks
Sand: mix CaribSea LiveSand and TBS gulf sand
Filtration: BRS ROX carbon in chamber with Intank Media basket, with coarse/fine filter pad at the top rack, mesh bags of live rock rubble in chamber 2, heater/Sicce 1.0 in return chamber.
Dosing: nothing currently. ALK keeps going up from ~7.5 dKh HG salt mix mix at 1.026sg), so not adding any All-For-Reef right now.
Inhabitants: 2 ocellaris clowns, 1 Randall's pistol shrimp, 1 saron shrimp, 1 pom pom crab, 1 pitho crab, 1 serpent seastar, 2 small conches, mix of astraeas, trochus, dwarf trochus, nerites and ceriths., A money cowrie, 2 large RFAs, torch, scoly, duncan, mushrooms, gsp, xenia, alveopora, acans, blastos, zoas, fungia plate, trumpet, 2 stalks of brotycladia, some small codium starting to expand, and some things I'm surely forgetting.
Feeding: NLS thera+ pellets fed directly once per day, one at a time to clowns and LPS (mushrooms also like a pellet every now and then, too); 4x catfish pellets (2 to serpent star, 1 intended to saron shrimp and 1 intended to pompom crab); sometimes 1/3rd of a veggie pellets for the conches and snails since sand bed is pretty clean; 50uL Reef Nutrition "RN" oyster feast, 50uL RN phyto dead, 50uL RN R.O.E. eggs, 50uL RN mysis feast.
Nutrients: running hot around 10-25ppm NO3, and 0.1ish PO4. ALK ~9.5dKh.
Lighting, 2x 21LEDusa Reefbarpro bars running not too high.

Thanks!

 

[i cant think]

Pencil urchin I've had for a few weeks doesn't touch GHA, which was the primary reason for getting one (and bc I understood them to be hardier than tuxedos). GHA is now in a fast growth rate. Tank info below, and pick after lights out--you can see the GHA taking over on the top rocks:

So what now? Another urchin or swap urchins? Turbos? Sea hare? Chiton?

I'm currently pulling out as much as I can tweeze with aquarium tongs every few days. Losing battle. Not too interested in making some sort of algae scrubber or trying to drop nutrients to nil--I have macro that need the nutrients and don't want other problems with low nutrients.

Sand bed and lower rocks are pretty clean. Conches doing great work there.

Toying with idea of using hydrogen peroxide spot treatment, using the nipple of a baby bottle connected to aquarium pippette for targeted patch treatment--worried this will kill all my coraline.

Any ideas welcome!

Tank: Fluval Evo 13.5g
Rocks: mix of TBS gulf live rocks and CaribSea LifeRocks
Sand: mix CaribSea LiveSand and TBS gulf sand
Filtration: BRS ROX carbon in chamber with Intank Media basket, with coarse/fine filter pad at the top rack, mesh bags of live rock rubble in chamber 2, heater/Sicce 1.0 in return chamber.
Dosing: nothing currently. ALK keeps going up from ~7.5 dKh HG salt mix mix at 1.026sg), so not adding any All-For-Reef right now.
Inhabitants: 2 ocellaris clowns, 1 Randall's pistol shrimp, 1 saron shrimp, 1 pom pom crab, 1 pitho crab, 1 serpent seastar, 2 small conches, mix of astraeas, trochus, dwarf trochus, nerites and ceriths., A money cowrie, 2 large RFAs, torch, scoly, duncan, mushrooms, gsp, xenia, alveopora, acans, blastos, zoas, fungia plate, trumpet, 2 stalks of brotycladia, some small codium starting to expand, and some things I'm surely forgetting.
Feeding: NLS thera+ pellets fed directly once per day, one at a time to clowns and LPS (mushrooms also like a pellet every now and then, too); 4x catfish pellets (2 to serpent star, 1 intended to saron shrimp and 1 intended to pompom crab); sometimes 1/3rd of a veggie pellets for the conches and snails since sand bed is pretty clean; 50uL Reef Nutrition "RN" oyster feast, 50uL RN phyto dead, 50uL RN R.O.E. eggs, 50uL RN mysis feast.
Nutrients: running hot around 10-25ppm NO3, and 0.1ish PO4. ALK ~9.5dKh.
Lighting, 2x 21LEDusa Reefbarpro bars running not too high.

Thanks!

Swap the Pencil for a Tuxedo. Tuxedo Urchins are much hardier and stay smaller. Pencils aren’t known for eating algae to my knowledge.

 

[Karliefish]

Pencil urchin I've had for a few weeks doesn't touch GHA, which was the primary reason for getting one (and bc I understood them to be hardier than tuxedos). GHA is now in a fast growth rate. Tank info below, and pick after lights out--you can see the GHA taking over on the top rocks:

So what now? Another urchin or swap urchins? Turbos? Sea hare? Chiton?

I'm currently pulling out as much as I can tweeze with aquarium tongs every few days. Losing battle. Not too interested in making some sort of algae scrubber or trying to drop nutrients to nil--I have macro that need the nutrients and don't want other problems with low nutrients.

Sand bed and lower rocks are pretty clean. Conches doing great work there.

Toying with idea of using hydrogen peroxide spot treatment, using the nipple of a baby bottle connected to aquarium pippette for targeted patch treatment--worried this will kill all my coraline.

Any ideas welcome!

Tank: Fluval Evo 13.5g
Rocks: mix of TBS gulf live rocks and CaribSea LifeRocks
Sand: mix CaribSea LiveSand and TBS gulf sand
Filtration: BRS ROX carbon in chamber with Intank Media basket, with coarse/fine filter pad at the top rack, mesh bags of live rock rubble in chamber 2, heater/Sicce 1.0 in return chamber.
Dosing: nothing currently. ALK keeps going up from ~7.5 dKh HG salt mix mix at 1.026sg), so not adding any All-For-Reef right now.
Inhabitants: 2 ocellaris clowns, 1 Randall's pistol shrimp, 1 saron shrimp, 1 pom pom crab, 1 pitho crab, 1 serpent seastar, 2 small conches, mix of astraeas, trochus, dwarf trochus, nerites and ceriths., A money cowrie, 2 large RFAs, torch, scoly, duncan, mushrooms, gsp, xenia, alveopora, acans, blastos, zoas, fungia plate, trumpet, 2 stalks of brotycladia, some small codium starting to expand, and some things I'm surely forgetting.
Feeding: NLS thera+ pellets fed directly once per day, one at a time to clowns and LPS (mushrooms also like a pellet every now and then, too); 4x catfish pellets (2 to serpent star, 1 intended to saron shrimp and 1 intended to pompom crab); sometimes 1/3rd of a veggie pellets for the conches and snails since sand bed is pretty clean; 50uL Reef Nutrition "RN" oyster feast, 50uL RN phyto dead, 50uL RN R.O.E. eggs, 50uL RN mysis feast.
Nutrients: running hot around 10-25ppm NO3, and 0.1ish PO4. ALK ~9.5dKh.
Lighting, 2x 21LEDusa Reefbarpro bars running not too high.

Thanks!

Definitely get a couple of tuxedo urchins - you’ll be shocked with their eating abilities. Don’t get more than a couple for your size tank

 

[Karliefish]

Definitely get a couple of tuxedo urchins - you’ll be shocked with their eating abilities. Don’t get more than a couple for your size tank

Also, I’d keep the pencil urchins as people love to view them as they almost look prehistoric

 

[wil-yuhm]

Also, I’d keep the pencil urchins as people love to view them as they almost look prehistoric

My Pencil Urchin moved over a Kenya tree last week and now only a stub of an once Kenya tree remains.
Pretty interesting nocturnal creature (Pencil Sea Urchin).

 

[Stomatopods17]

Could try lettuce slugs, or a sea hare if you're willing to find it a home later.

Pencils will eat pretty much anything in their path, which is the problem because that includes coral, coralline, etc. By the time they get through the coralline the hair algae it did eat already grew back.

Personally before I'd remove anymore I'd pick up more good macro and stuff it in there, out compete the hair algae for nutrients so it can't grow back. Stick in a mangrove, add a lettuce slug or two, dial back on feedings to a few times a week, see if it slows down until the corals start growing and consume some of those nutrients instead of the GHA.

 

[JoJosReef]

Could try lettuce slugs, or a sea hare if you're willing to find it a home later.

Pencils will eat pretty much anything in their path, which is the problem because that includes coral, coralline, etc. By the time they get through the coralline the hair algae it did eat already grew back.

Personally before I'd remove anymore I'd pick up more good macro and stuff it in there, out compete the hair algae for nutrients so it can't grow back. Stick in a mangrove, add a lettuce slug or two, dial back on feedings to a few times a week, see if it slows down until the corals start growing and consume some of those nutrients instead of the GHA.

This is an older thread. Took care of it with two turboa and a tuxedo. The key was draining the water, scrubbing the rocks and spraying H2O2 over the surface (not saturating the rocks). The snails and urchin have taken over the rest and kept it down to nothing.

Knock on wood.

Now the pencil urchin has been marginally more active lately scraping the coraline paint off the dry rock leaving nice white sections.

So far no coral massacres I've witnessed, but I do have a ravaged green rhodactis in the sand bed...

 

[wil-yuhm]

So far no coral massacres I've witnessed, but I do have a ravaged green rhodactis in the sand bed...

My Kenya Tree stub has shone regeneration.
I am a happy observer because no massacre occurred by said Pencil Sea Urchin.

 

[Karliefish]

My three pencil urchins have spared damage to any corals but is leaving similar white markings on my rock work