Tuxedo Urchin vs. GSP

[jrgilles]

So I have a heavily decorated tuxedo urchin. Has many shells attached to it, as well as a frag of whamming watermelon zoas it picked up, and it just recently picked a couple green star polyps off my overflow box.

I'm wondering if I need to manually remove the GSP. I'd hate the weed like polyps to grow over my urchin. Is this a silly concern? Or should I remove them? And, am I going to damage the urchin by picking off its decoration?

 

[LeslieH]

Two of the reasons urchins decorate themselves is as camouflage and to protect their soft tissue from UV rays which can damage them. Your urchin is more than capable of pruning the GSP on its own but you won't seriously harm it by carefully pulling off the polyps. Do it gently so not too many of the urchin's tube feet are removed. The urchin can regenerate the lost ones.

 

[Chichas01]

yeah, leave him be. mine has decide to pick up a piece of hair algae infested clump of Halimeda. He look like one of those troll dolls roaming around my tank...taunting me with the HA. little bastard.