dog gone urchin!!

[juice28]

IM fairly new withthe reef set up, its been up and running for about a monthand a half and things are ok, (now) but this is my question/problem. My girl went to the LFS and picked up 2 urchins, 1 pincusion and pencil,(already had a small cleaner crew) i wasnt too sure about adding them but we already had them in the house for one, the tank is empty(minus the crew) so i went ahead and added them...I had no idea urchins ate that much i knew they would eat but not like that.. in about a week they basically stripped all my algae off my LR and glass my snails died well the pencil urchin got 2 out of the 4 and i think the other two just starved to death due to the fact that they couldnt keep up with the urchins... welli have more LR and so storbought plants and algae but should I just get rid of the urchins all together or will they be ok once the tanks is more seasoned? 47gal high,35 lbs of lr 2olbs of base rock

 

[melosu58]

You`ll probably need to put some seaweed sheets in there for them to eat. I`m thinking your tank is too small for two of them. One will do.

 

[catmel]

I have 1 pencil urchin in my 55 gallon. I cant think of having any more! It eats most of the algae pretty well and hasnt caused many problems. The only issue I have had with it is that it seems to ahve a 'sense of humor' in that it loved to knock over one little peice of rock with the mushroom frag on it. over and over and over.. seemed just for fun lol.. until I finally secured the piece of rock.. ha!! heh.. but yes, I think one will do just fine. Be careful with the pincushion, they are sharp!

 

[baldyguy]

Are urchins reef safe? And are they really that good at cleaning up algae?

 

[melosu58]

I`ve never had one but from what I hear they do a good job with algea. I`ve heard that they will go after coralline also. They are reef safe as far as they wont mess with your corals.

 

[roka64]

I have a pencil and pincushion in my 55. They are both thriving. I waited about a year after I set up the tank to add them. How old is your tank?

 

[ezy33]

I picked up a pumpkin urchin about 2 weeks ago for my refugium. After clearing about one square foot of aquarium glass it found the plants and has been reeling them in by the foot. dog gone urchin!! Today it's back on the glass probably looking for more plants.

 

[juice28]

yea my tank is 47gal but its a tall tank and its only been up for about 2 months to answer the ? above, YES they do a great job on algea...now the pencil urchin..he eats everything.. i found him the other day smashing one of my snails

 

[roka64]

Hmmm, I have quite a few snails and have never seen mine eat one, but my snails are a little larger. You do have to be careful, the pencil will wedge and dislodge rocks.

 

[catmel]

Yep, pencils LOVE to push rocks, Thats my ony dislike about mine. Otherwise, great algae eater

 

[SparKy697]

Have one pincushion, it seems to do a good job at eating algae. It's a bulldozer though. Seems to have little care about what or who it climbs on and every little piece of rock, shell, or whatnot gets stuck to it. It's like a traveling junk pile. Oh, this one lives in a little 29g reef tank. To date it has not caused any harm to any corals that I have seen.

 

[juice28]

yea the pencil is about an inch across so hes still kinda little, as far as the snail he fell off the side of the ank of landed rightnext to the pencil i figured he'd right himself and move along i looked a little later and he wasunder the pencil still facing up but thew were wedged between some rocks I still didnt think anything of it untill i saw the empty shell fall a couple days later and the pencil crawl out the hole

 

[roka64]

Sparky, they do that for camouflage, mine carried around an old hydrometer for a day or two!

 

[Dr. Dai Phan]

HI,

I got two common urchins (like brown hackeesac) but they don't touch my hairy green algae (like Don King's hair) at all. Those are a pain to remove. Any suggestions? Dai

 

[SparKy697]

Take your index finger and thumb, place them together while grasping a clump of algae, and pull... Repeat as needed.

I hate that stuff and manual removal is just about the only thing I have found that works.

 

[juice28]

PROS CORRECT ME IF IM WRONG PLEASE!!
Im still very new at this and I dont have a lot of green hair algae, but i kind of nipped it in the bud when i started my set up, I know it thrives in low water flow and with heavy feedings (high nitrites) I have a high water flow and im not a heavey feeder of my "fish" they eat probably every 3 days but my emerald crab seems to like it along with my turbo snail and ive heard alot about sea hares really being the only thing that specifically will eat it and pretty much all other algae but when the algae's gone the sea hare will starve to death, foxfaces and tangs are good to but every tank is different so what works in mine might not work in yours i dont have a lot of algae period except coraline so thats probably why my turbo snail and emerald crab do the job, the best thing i can tell you is if its bad scrub it off with a toothbrush to get the majority off and then maybe your "cleaners" will control it if you dont have a turbo snail id say snag one or two and a couple emerald crabs to start with depending on your set up if its reef your carbs should be fine but if your FO or FWLR they might become a meal

 

[Drewbie]

do

Pincushion Urchin, Blue Tuxedo​

​

eat algae as the pencils do??

I perfer the look.

Really like the Longspine Urchin, Black

 

[roka64]

Juice, the hair algae thrives off of nitrAtes and phosphates. My pencil doesn't seem to eat hair algae as much as my pincushion. I honestly beleive the pincushion is really eating the coraline and anything that is on top of it, so I don't think their diet is really hair algae....

 

[juice28]

ok thanks for the correction roka64, DREWBIE, my PENCIL REALLY DOESNT TOUCH IT like roka64 said mainly coraline, actually ever since my pencil ate one of my snails he has ben wedged in the same place for about a week now.. must still be full i attached the best pic i could get of it