Short Spine Urchin???

[Mini-30]

My newest tank has been up and running about 2 months now. Tonight while looking at the tank my wife and I noticed two small black urchins sharing a large hole in a piece of live rock. We started looking around and found another of the same urchin across the tank on another piece of rock. They are probably 1/4" to 3/8" in diameter and solid black. After looking at different urchins online, I feel safe in guessing that these are short spine or rock burrowing urchins.

Anyone have any of these in their tanks? Any problems with them bothering corals? I was going to go to the LFS this weekend and pick up a few corals (the first coral additions to this tank) but wanted to find out what was up with these hitch hikers before proceeding with coral additions.

Here are some pics I snapped with my phone. Sorry for the poor quality. Can anyone confirm that these are actually short spine urchns???

 

[Mini-30]

Ok. Just found another one. That brings my confirmed total to at least 4 of these little boogers. It's funny that I never saw any of them until tonight. Im wonderng if the new lighting on the tank has anything to do with it. Yesterday I installed an AI Prime over the tank and programmed it to simulate sunrise, mid day sun, and sun set. Thinking maybe I never saw them before because my previous lighting was only on and off on a timer. Since urchins are mostly nocturnal, Im wondering if the sun set feature is making them come out before lights are totally off?

I will say this is the best live rock I have ever had in my 20 years of reef keeping. I have found basket stars, brittle stars, urchins, macro algae, several oysters and scallops, just an awesome array of life forms. I have had nice live rock in the past but never rock with the diversity and quantity of boogers that this rock seems to contain. Seems like every day we find something new and that my friends is what makes this hobby so exciting.

 

[Naiad]

I loved mine. Never bothered anything. Other than coralline and some hailimedea (sp ?) . Been looking to get another for my new tank.

 

[Tahoe61]

Hard to say specific type. Mostly harmless, but if they become a larger variety will bull doze over corals if the corals are not glued down. Cool hitch-hiker though. Sounds like awesome rock.

 

[Roboson]

Where did you get your live rock?

 

[Mini-30]

Where did you get your live rock?

Fishy Business in Columbia, SC.

 

[4FordFamily]

I love urchins! That's pretty neat I would say they're harmless unless massive and knock over frags as some of my black spines get over the years

 

[Pamela]

Fishy Business in Columbia, SC.

Off topic, but one of my daughters is serving in the Army Band at Fort Jackson!

As for the urchins, I'm so glad everybody likes them because I just ordered two of them in my CUC pack last night!