Tuxedo Urchins - Red & Blue; Share your experience

[CodyRVA]

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for a good algae eater to add to my CUC. I have an 80G, currently struggling with turf algae. I have scarlet hermits, a few nassarius, bunch of trochus, and a lonely turbo. I'm looking at adding a tuxedo urchin...

Share your experiences with them. Any risks. My concern is it starving over time. Any difference besides color in the red/blue variety. Is (1) enough for my system or do I need more. Should I get any other cleaners for algae in addition to a single urchin or will the one urchin do the job.

Thanks, happy reefing!

 

[Tahoe61]

I have found them to eat both GHA and Coralline algae, not sure about turf.

They are great algae eaters but you have to make sure everything is glued down they will move rocks if they are not stable, and of course frags.

Feed Nori when the supply of other algae run out, they will actually go to back to the same spot for the nori after awhile.

 

[CodyRVA]

I have found them to eat both GHA and Coralline algae, not sure about turf.

They are great algae eaters but you have to make sure everything is glued down they will move rocks if they are not stable, and of course frags.

Feed Nori when the supply of other algae run out, they will actually go to back to the same spot for the nori after awhile.

Thanks for the input. I'm going back and forth between getting one of these guys and just a bunch of cerith snails. I already feed nori to my foxface/tang, not sure I could target feed the urchin without those fish stealing it away. I don't really have THAT much algae, more so algae in hard to reach places... makes me thing ceriths might be better. I'm open to other suggestions BTW.

 

[Tahoe61]

Try a couple Chitons, but honestly I have no experience with any invert that eats turf algae unfortunately. I have bought urchins in the past for algae issues with good results but I always re-home them because they are such bulldozers.

 

[Kamden Uelton]

Mine ripped zoas off their plug and ate seagrass, Had to go.

 

[Plauri55]

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for a good algae eater to add to my CUC. I have an 80G, currently struggling with turf algae. I have scarlet hermits, a few nassarius, bunch of trochus, and a lonely turbo. I'm looking at adding a tuxedo urchin...

Share your experiences with them. Any risks. My concern is it starving over time. Any difference besides color in the red/blue variety. Is (1) enough for my system or do I need more. Should I get any other cleaners for algae in addition to a single urchin or will the one urchin do the job.

Thanks, happy reefing!

My tuxedo has been a model citizen for over a year. Eats algae and I supplement him with Nori. Does pick up odd and ends in his spines but never caused any damages.

 

[ThunderGoose]

My tuxedo is great. She's small so she tends to carry empty shells or even pieces of Nori.

I also have a larger Atlantic something urchin who is the one who picks up frags and is a major suspect when something gets knocked over.

I like them anyway - they can be fun to watch and the diversity makes me happy.

 

[cmcoker]

I keep a blue tuxedo in my 56g, another 55g I had 2. My conch is a worse bulldozer, but if it's not attached the tuxedo will move stuff around. They like to pick up stuff to camouflage, mines using some bubble algae and shells currently

I find them to be a nice addition and will always have one in the tank. Even if I didn't like them myself, my wife loves them and would demand one, lol.

 

[Jo P White]

I’ve had a tuxedo for about a year. He does a great job munching around my tank. He cleared out all the algae I had in my 30g so I moved him to my 90g since he started in on the coraline. He does love to steal things though. He currently has 3 24k zoa polyps and a red mushroom as party hats. I’ll sometimes find a poor blue leg hermit being carried around as a hostage that I have to pluck off his grasp. They’re always eating which is great and funny to watch.