Sea urchant removal

[Meganinez]

So I loved this guy at my LFS however he is cleaning my rocks down to the bone! My friend says he can live in his tank but does anyone know the best way to move him

[Rosesrblu1]

Spoon him out with a large plastic kitchen spoon ( like for mixing sauces) and transport him in a bucket with water. That's how I did mine. Good luck and be mindful of the spines on the urchin

[Meganinez]

Thank you! And yes I got poked by it before not interest with another run in!

[audifusion]

I have half a dozen of those guys, they really clean every thing off the rocks. The good and the bad algae.

mine are the pincushion and pencil urchins so you can just grab them by hand gently.

Try relocating him to your sump tank

[Rosesrblu1]

Agree that pencil and pincushions can just be picked up, but the one that Megan is talking about appears to be a long spine of some sort. These spines have barbs and I can say they DO hurt A LOT!!!!!

[bigben2057]

I'm not certain but isn't that one poisonous?

[Rosesrblu1]

Not sure about the poison, but it hurt like a .... Soaked my finger in vinegar and the sting went away after a while. We have since re-homed him. Beautiful, but dangerous. Looking to pick up a small purple pincushion now for my reef, but have a pencil, rock boring, and common urchin in my 180. The common urchin was smaller that a dime when he hitch hiked on a rock. Now the size of a baseball almost 2 years later. His name is spot...

[Meganinez]

I can't keep my hands out of my tank, I forgot about him and ran my arm into him and he poked me but within the second I was washing the spot off with dish soap. I only got a small irritation. But I found the whole event alarming

[audifusion]

if you get stuck by the spine soak the affected area in hot water for a couple minutes until the pain goes away.

I got stung by a stingray a few months ago and that was the only thing that took the pain away.

the heat breaks down the protein based venom.