Urchin Reef safe or not?

[scunfcu]

Are Urchin reef safe or not? I know they can knock over frags and etc, but will it eat my corals?

 

[GQ22]

urchin are a natural part of the reef in nature. Reefs die becuse they urchins are over harvested, so i guess they are reef safe. Seen urchins in many healthy tanks

 

[Killerdrgn]

Ehhh there are many causes to natural reefs dying. Global warming, overfishing, crown of thorns starfish, fertalizer runoff, etc. I don't think reefs are dying off just because of the lack of urchins.

But back to the point on hand, yeah urchins are pretty reef safe. They may nibble on some corals if there is coraline algae basically like right on the coral. I've heard some bad scenario's where an urchin ate the algae off the electric wire for a heater and didn't stop chewing. Thus causing the tank to go cold and killing everything. Highly unlikely though.

Also said urchin may starve to death if there isn't enough algae. One of my urchins died when my coralline algae wasn't growing fast enough and it ate all of it and died. May have been cause by another factor that coincided with the running out of algae but not too sure.

 

[scunfcu]

Sounds like I can gave them a try. Thanks.

 

[BroRage]

try looking at a tuxedo pin cushion.. and there was a thread just recently of urchins that other members kept in there tanks..

 

[leoskee]

I brought back some rubble LR from PR a few years ago and there were two urchins that came along for the ride. They ate almost a quarter of the coraline algae off of my LR. It was unbelievable.

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

Urchins are reef safe bulldozers

 

[inline6]

Urchins are reef safe bulldozers

Had a pencil urchin you could not kill, also liked to bulldoze very large rock work.

 

[dennis]

They are reer safe, I have a long spine urchin over a year now great algae eaters. Its spines are between 5-6 inches from the base and they eat nori. I am considering geting rid of him and getting a smaller one, its an intresting animal.

 

[scunfcu]

I will look into a Blue tuxedo pin cushion bulldozer. Think my frags are in trouble. :biggrin: