Urchin shedding spines

Naiad · Jul 21, 2014

OK I currently have 4 rock urchins in my tank (several tanks have been combined during remodel). One of them started loosing spines two days ago. I know this can often be a bad sign. The other three are fine. It does appear to be regrowing the spines but the amount she is shedding is worrying me. Any advice would be helpful. My nitrates are high at 20. I am working on this but I have had worse.

nawilson89 · Jul 21, 2014

Not enough to eat? My old Urchin shed ALOT of spines right before it passed. It was terrible and there wasnt anything for it to eat. I learned from it and now my current one eats like champ... all my macro algae... sigh...

fishroomlady · Jul 21, 2014

yes, usually not a good sign. You can try putting some algae near it (a sheet of nori works from what I've read). I don't think the nitrates would have anything to do with the spine loss

Naiad · Jul 21, 2014

I feed them all nori and extra fish food. Making sure everything has enough food is one of the nitrate problems. I can try more food. I have read it can be a sign of death. It is worrying

fishroomlady · Jul 21, 2014

if you've been feeding it, it very well could be dying

I'm not aware of a treatment for urchins.....you may want to continue to monitor it and if it keeps shedding, I'd remove it so it doesn't cause a problem for the tank.

TruRacr314x · Jul 21, 2014

I had an urchin in my sump that rode up with the water level when I shut the pump off for a wc....didn't see that when I was done, the urchin had fallen in between baffles and was stuck for a day. There was a pile of spines under him when I found him....but once removed, he slowly grew them back and is back to normal again. Soooo..loss of spines isn't necessarily a sign of inevitable looming death. Might be stress related of some sort...