Urchin losing spikes

[willforr]

I bought a sea urchin yesterday and it’s already lost about half of its spikes. It’s not moving around much either. I heard they do this if the water quality is poor but I don’t think that is the case for me. Is it normal for them to do this while acclimating? I think it also might be caused by dinoflagellates because they’ve recently reappeared in my tank and I can see a little on the urchin. Please let me know what I can do

 

[davidcalgary29]

You really can't do much at this point. I've never really had much of a problem with not acclimating my urchins for a long period of time (a half hour at best is it for me), but I've found that they're very sensitive to household cleaners and some aquarium additives. I just lost a pincushion urchin after a round of Chemiclean, and mine reacted very badly -- and immediately -- with even a small amount of hydrogen peroxide. Is it possible that something got into your tank?

 

[Sleeping Giant]

It looks like it died, sorry for the loss. I had the same thing happen to a Halloween urchin I bought last year.

 

[willforr]

I’m starting to dose dr Tim’s waste away and I dose other elements for the corals. There’s also an emerald crab which I find to be somewhat agressive sometimes, I saw it close by the urchin last night. I also had to glue on a few more corals with gel super glue, that’s about it though

 

[willforr]

I’m just confused what I did wrong, it was looking perfectly healthy 24 hours ago

 

[davidcalgary29]

A quick death does point to a contaminant, although it also could have been slowly starving for quite some time.

 

[willforr]

So since it’s lost some of its spikes, is it ok to take it out of the tank now or should I wait?

 

[willforr]

I just took it out cause it looked completely dead to me. Any tips on what I can do differently if I got another one?

 

[davidcalgary29]

First, make sure that you have enough algae for it not to starve. If you do not, get nori on a clip on which it can feed.

Second, stick with tuxedo urchins. They're lovely and compact and quite hardy -- and you can pick them up.

Third, do not dose chemiclean or H2O2 in your tank, and be very mindful when spraying anything around it.

 

[willforr]

What about purigen? I use that, do you think that effects it at all?

 

[davidcalgary29]

No.

 

[Wasabiroot]

Urchins (along with snails and shrimp, indeed most invertebrates) are extremely sensitive to swings in water parameters, especially salinity. They require drip acclimation or patient manual acclimation to ensure they don't die from shock.