Not Reef Safe!!!!

[auqua man]

when I set up my tank one of the first things I got was a Diadema spp.
" long spined urchins " I was told it was completely reef safe. and was very happy with it. It was around 3" around and kept the tank very clean "algae". A year and a half later the thing is 24" around much to big for my 110 reef. over the last year I have had a mysterious coral eater. at night something was eating the body of my hammer coral and frog spawn. over time it has destroyed the frogspawn. Recently I bought a Montipora sp. frag and was horrified to find it half eaten in the morning. The next day my acropora had a branch eaten off it. All this time I thought it was a crab coming out at night and causing the destruction. Recently I awoke early and found the urchin " in the dark " eating the rest of the montipora frag. Before I could return the urchin to the store it also ate part of my large montipora. So all I can say is that it is NOT REEF SAFE!
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I threw in some pic of the corals that were eaten
and the crab I blamed all this time

 

[DonW]

Yup they do that when they get bigger. 24" geeze give the thing a hair cut he'll fit in a 110 fine. He will also be able to access the smaller areas of the tank where he can no longer craze. The coral munching will stop if he can access food.

Don

 

[auqua man]

to late I returned him to the lfs. You should have seen the guys face when I showed him how big it was. I used a salt bucket to return it and It filled the whole thing:lol:

 

[auqua man]

Yup they do that when they get bigger. 24" geeze give the thing a hair cut he'll fit in a 110 fine. He will also be able to access the smaller areas of the tank where he can no longer craze. The coral munching will stop if he can access food.

Don

Hi Don how do you give it a cut without loosing all my blood. And yes he is a bit craze lol.

 

[twilliard]

True a long spine is not safe.
I picked up a superman monti frag and it ended up eating half of it. It also ate my pokerstar.

I hear they are good eating

 

[DonW]

Hi Don how do you give it a cut without loosing all my blood. And yes he is a bit craze lol.

I have one of the cheapo gripper tools with a scissor tip from petco. I would just chase my urchin around nipping away at the spines. If you pay close attention and get rid of them when the food source gets low they are very cool to have. Keep in mind that they cant get food from cracks or crevises. The bigger they get the flatter the crazing area needs to be.

Don

 

[Snowboarda42]

I was gonna say cook it too. I was watching Top Chef the other night and they cooked urchin.

Got any pics of the big sucker?

 

[auqua man]

View attachment 22626ooops wrong pic lol
can you belive that I cant find a decent pic.

 

[burning2nd]

in "Lost" they were eating urchins, The korean guy Jin was geting them in one epp... they looked black.

hmmmmmm

 

[auqua man]

Not a big sea food fan. I'm not shure why??