How established for an urchin and which do you prefer?

starypotter · Sep 5, 2018

Hi everyone,

I want to get an urchin because I think they're absolutely fantastic. I may or may not have gotten into this hobby because of the corals and inverts. I will feed it algae as needed in the form of nori or whatever is recommended. I'm thinking a tuxedo or pincushion would be best. I know to avoid the long spine ones. My tank isn't exactly long established, it's well past it's cycle, but I'm still struggling somewhat to keep my phosphates in order but I'm getting there. Phosphate high, nitrate 0.

Would this be harmful to an urchin? Are there any fish/inverts that have compatibility issues with them?

I have a 75 gallon tank, with a 40b sump. 75 actual gallons of water.
I have
1 / 2 cleaner shrimp,
1 blood fire shrimp,
1 peppermint shrimp,
1 candy pistol shrimp,
1 fighting conch,
1 Halloween hermit crab
- assorted snails and hermit crabs from ReefCleaners

On the skunk cleaner shrimps, I actually have 3, one in my 75, it's a big one. And two small ones in my frag tank. I had planned to put one of the small ones in the big tank but I'm not sure if it would go over well or not because of it's size.

DeniseAndy · Sep 6, 2018

Inverts are always great additions. Careful on the skunk cleaners all together. Some will not tolerate it. Others have luck with multiples.

As far as the urchin, it will need a mature tank with lots to eat and graze. Algae of many kinds. Do not rush this or your urchin will die. Some do not take to nori strips. If you do feed nori, tie on a rock with rubber band so urchin can crawl over and eat.

In that tank I would go tuxedo (red being my preferred - a bit harder to find) or a varigated because they stay smaller and are captive bred by ora.

Have fun stocking!

starypotter · Sep 6, 2018

DeniseAndy said:
Inverts are always great additions. Careful on the skunk cleaners all together. Some will not tolerate it. Others have luck with multiples.

As far as the urchin, it will need a mature tank with lots to eat and graze. Algae of many kinds. Do not rush this or your urchin will die. Some do not take to nori strips. If you do feed nori, tie on a rock with rubber band so urchin can crawl over and eat.

In that tank I would go tuxedo (red being my preferred - a bit harder to find) or a varigated because they stay smaller and are captive bred by ora.

Have fun stocking!

Thanks for the advice, I will wait for things to settle. I certainly do not have an absence of algae, but I do have a bryopsis problem that needs to be treated so I will wait until after at the very least. I'm glad to hear there's a captive bred urchin!

I should have been clearer with the info regarding the skunk cleaners, I had purchased my original one and it's in my 75. Then I set up a frag tank/invert QT and I really wanted to get another shrimp to go in there. LFS was having a sale on them, and I got two. I figured that one would stay in the frag tank, and one would go into the DT leaving it with two in the DT and one in the frag tank. I'd read that as long as there wasn't more than two they should be okay.
I'll certainly do more research on that. Maybe I'll just have to keep both of the small ones in the frag QT to avoid a tiny one being bothered by the big one.

ThunderGoose · Sep 6, 2018

You should have good coralline growth before getting an urchin. I have two and love them both. My tuxedo is better "behaved" but I see her less. My pincushion (came in as a hitchhiker) is the one that moves corals and leaves white areas on my rocks where she takes off the surface layer. She's bigger so I see her more.

I have both in a 55 display and they are both looking good. They both produce eggs periodically- free food.

DieHardPhotog-Reefer · Sep 6, 2018

ThunderGoose said:
You should have good coralline growth before getting an urchin. I have two and love them both. My tuxedo is better "behaved" but I see her less. My pincushion (came in as a hitchhiker) is the one that moves corals and leaves white areas on my rocks where she takes off the surface layer. She's bigger so I see her more.

I have both in a 55 display and they are both looking good. They both produce eggs periodically- free food.

Thanks for that feedback. We have 2 pincushion urchins in a 90 gal DT. I didn't know what those little white beads were constantly rolling off the urchins but I guess those are eggs based on your comment above. And yes, they'll clean an area of a rock so white that it looks like it's new dry rock!

maevepotter · Sep 6, 2018

DieHardPhotog-Reefer said:
Thanks for that feedback. We have 2 pincushion urchins in a 90 gal DT. I didn't know what those little white beads were constantly rolling off the urchins but I guess those are eggs based on your comment above. And yes, they'll clean an area of a rock so white that it looks like it's new dry rock!

How long does it take the coraline to come back? Is an urchin a bad idea for a 29g?

DieHardPhotog-Reefer · Sep 6, 2018

maevepotter said:
How long does it take the coraline to come back? Is an urchin a bad idea for a 29g?

Unfortunately, I can't answer that. We didn't have much growing to begin with. Our tank is still fairly new with only a little coraline algae growing along the back wall and the overflow.

We added urchins to get rid of hair algae and they did a wonderful job at that. Now that our phosphate count is lower, they don't have as much to eat. We keep dropping mini algae wafers and keep a small strip of nori in the tank.

starypotter · Sep 6, 2018

ThunderGoose said:
You should have good coralline growth before getting an urchin. I have two and love them both. My tuxedo is better "behaved" but I see her less. My pincushion (came in as a hitchhiker) is the one that moves corals and leaves white areas on my rocks where she takes off the surface layer. She's bigger so I see her more.

I have both in a 55 display and they are both looking good. They both produce eggs periodically- free food.

Good to know, I found your post from a while back about all of your urchin friends. I'll make sure that I've got plenty to munch on before I get any urchins

pdxmonkeyboy · Sep 7, 2018

I love my pincushion because he grabs random things and carts them around the tank. frag plugs, zoa colonies, he had an algae clip on his back for like a week! LOL

starypotter · Sep 7, 2018

Brian Bieger said:
I love my pincushion because he grabs random things and carts them around the tank. frag plugs, zoa colonies, he had an algae clip on his back for like a week! LOL

That sounds absolutely fantastic. I love all of the quirks of different tank dwellers. Now does he just happen to stumble upon things that stick to him, or does he intentionally collect these things? Honestly I'm not sure which option is more amusing.

ncaldwell · Sep 7, 2018

They will rip off frags. My Halloween tuxedo is stronger than superglue, and stronger than snails. I think he might think that I put the frags in there on accident and tries to bring it back to the top of the tank for me.

DeniseAndy · Sep 7, 2018

I had a little green nepthea ride on the back of an urchin for three months. Grew three times as large too. Very funny creatures. They pick them up to use as camo. So, if you have loose frags they will be taken. Be aware.

maevepotter · Sep 7, 2018

This is hilarious

DeniseAndy said:
I had a little green nepthea ride on the back of an urchin for three months. Grew three times as large too. Very funny creatures. They pick them up to use as camo. So, if you have loose frags they will be taken. Be aware.