Hey guys does anyone have any advice other then get rid of it? My urchin has basically stripped my tank clean and is now eating red monti cap that sunny gave me. He hasn't munched on any other corals but I feel like it's just going to get worse. I feed nori strips and pellets to my tangs and I try to feed them to my urchin to but he seems to only find the Nori strips once in a blue moon. My fuga and sump habe no room for him. Any advice, my wife really wants to keep it?
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Long spine pencil urchin
- Thread starter Mikeamadio
- Start date
Long spine not pencil **
I've seen quite a bit of it in my research. As tanks get stripped of all algea they start looking for other foods to eat, and for a few it's been Montis or other sps. I have a 90 gallon and have had him for two years. Originally he was in a 90 long covered in coral one and some normal algea now that was transfered to a 93 cube which is clean of algea. Can I seed a tank from coral one scraping and is there any macro algea he would eat? Does any one have any scraping or algea avaiable for purchase
The longspine will eat pretty much any algae. Their diet consists of algae even other urchins won't eat. Problem is I don't believe they "find" it rather then happen across it. They kind of just graze the area. When I fist added my tuxedo it would leave stripes of uneaten areas all of the back wall. Eventually it would get back to the area and clear some more. So just adding some nori may or may not work. I had that tuxedo for about 1.5 years and it stripped my 180 clean so I moved him to my frag tank and he cleaned that too. Back to the 180 and he started on the coralline. That was a 2" tuxedo, Longspines are supposed to be more voracious eaters and larger urchins in general. That all said it may have outgrown the system. You may try to rid the system of all other algae eaters like larger snails and such.
Feed em nori if you want to keep em. I have always had a soft spot for urchins and like mentioned they will eat all algae including coraline. When the stock ran out I would feed em nori or kelp and he'd easily take to it. Use a clip or tie a piece down on a rock for him to graze.
I have never seen them eat corals and I have always had one variety or another in my tanks over the years.
Do you have a pic of the urchin? How big is he?
I have never seen them eat corals and I have always had one variety or another in my tanks over the years.
Do you have a pic of the urchin? How big is he?
He definitely stripped all the rock clean I do have a few bigger snails so I'll gather them up and maybe throw them in the fuge for a while
He's big about 3" some spikes extend 10 to 12" he's a hardy guy I have watched him eat the montI and Im constantly moving him off of I do offer him Noritake 1 put 1 inch strips on my clip as close as I can to him and he normally just heads the other way I've seen him eat 1 piece only because it was in his path hours after.
Yea I try to feed him daily but that's a good point I should probably offer him a bigger strip I do fees my tangs a 3x3 strip every other day so maybe I'll up everything and feed daily
Wife would divorce me lol. I'm going to try to step up feeding amd if that doesn't work he's prob going to get posted to the chain gang
I will try that. I would also like to reseed my rock with coralline and micro fawna maybe if I jack up his feeding it can grow back should I just purchase a nice piece of live rock or would shavings from a different tank help? And thanks guys your knowledge is definitely appreciated.
That's awesome hopefully mine takes the same path then I'll put a second clip in for the tangs so they don't clash!