Should i be worried? Urchin on my chalice
- Thread starter Guss
- Start date
- Tagged users None
Javiv3
Community Member
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2019
- Messages
- 77
- Reaction score
- 27
- Location
- Miami
- What state or country do you live in
- Florida
Hello, I have had an urchin in my reef for a while, I also had a nice chalice that was pretty nice size. I have lost most of it but cannot blame the urchin totally, it may have been poor water quality. The only thing I do not like is that she drags all my plugs around the tank and I have to pry them off gets a little annoying but I put up with it because she does a great job of keeping hair algae at bay. I would keep an eye on it but they do not usually eat corals they are usually just munching on the algae around them.
Vette67
Reefing since 1997
Rock urchins like that love coralline. See the white ring around the top of that ceramic disk in your picture? That’s where the urchin ate the coralline. If you don’t have lots of coralline in your tank, you could be in trouble. I had an urchin chew a 1 inch acro frag down to the ceramic plug. Just to give you an idea, this pane of glass was completely covered in coralline. Within 4 days, mine cleared 75% of the glass. That is a 20” x 24” pane.
Before:
After:
Did I mention that urchins eat A LOT of coralline? Feed it well and you’ll have no problems. Without much coralline, I would try feeding it nori to keep it from eating your stony corals. Now every animal is different, and yours may never eat coral, but they certainly can.
Before:
After:
Did I mention that urchins eat A LOT of coralline? Feed it well and you’ll have no problems. Without much coralline, I would try feeding it nori to keep it from eating your stony corals. Now every animal is different, and yours may never eat coral, but they certainly can.
