Just seen something in my tank never seen before!

[hawk82]

This black thing on the rock! I was looking in the tank after lights had gone off, and spotted this! I turned the lights back on to get a pic, and soon after it crawled off and disappeared. Ive been looking in my tank at night for almost 2 months now, looking for neat stuff that come out at night, and never seen this before.

 

[ca1ore]

Urchin

 

[35ppt]

Redacted

 

[hawk82]

Safe to leave in tank?

 

[35ppt]

Redacted

 

[hawk82]

Depends, do you want corals? They have been known to eat some corals.

/Also, I'm assume it's a Pencil Urchin. If you provide a closer photo of it we can try to better ID.

Im not going to be keeping any lps or sps. Just softies. I got a few leathers in the tank, some gsp, mushrooms, and zoas. Those are going to be the extent of my coral keeping.

//Hes already gone now, no more pictures.

 

[35ppt]

Redacted

 

[Thespammailaccount]

I have two and have never bothered any corals

 

[ca1ore]

I’ve never had them eat corals, though they can scour the rocks of coraline algae. Mostly annoying but not invasive as they will bulldoze frags and smaller rocks that aren’t well ‘rooted’.

 

[Thespammailaccount]

Safe to leave in tank?

Yes

 

[hawk82]

Thanks for replies, guess I will leave it alone for now. Not that I could catch it anyway, no idea where it went. I'll just keep an eye on my corals.

 

[hawk82]

Oh he must of came in on my gulf live rocks, if thats any clue as to what kind he could be.

 

[Thespammailaccount]

Oh he must of came in on my gulf live rocks, if thats any clue as to what kind he could be.

Yes came with the rock cool critter it is a black long spine urchin

 

[35ppt]

Redacted

 

[35ppt]

Redacted

 

[hawk82]

Wow! which ones live around Florida? Thats where the rock came from.

 

[35ppt]

Redacted

 

[taricha]

I had a baby hitchhiker urchin once. was a black urchin that was neither long spine nor pencil. It ate coralline algae primarily. I left the back glass un-scraped and he'd graze it almost all the time.
I tried to replace it later, but there's no ID and the closest things I can find don't have that weird coralline-eating obsession.

edit: the point of the story is that my urchin looked a lot like the OPs at that phase.

 

[hawk82]

I had a baby hitchhiker urchin once. was a black urchin that was neither long spine nor pencil. It ate coralline algae primarily. I left the back glass un-scraped and he'd graze it almost all the time.
I tried to replace it later, but there's no ID and the closest things I can find don't have that weird coralline-eating obsession.

edit: the point of the story is that my urchin looked a lot like the OPs at that phase.

Did it ever bother your coral? And I just seen another one last night. A little smaller then the first, both sitting side by side on the same rock.

 

[taricha]

Did it ever bother your coral? And I just seen another one last night. A little smaller then the first, both sitting side by side on the same rock.

nope! that's why I tried to intentionally buy the same type a couple of years later, only ate coralline and green algae.