Tuxedo Urchin?

[Jolieve]

Okay... I talked to a couple of people about this, and thought I would get a general consensus before I made a final decision. I'd like to put a tuxedo urchin in the tank. Want to start with a small one. I have had a nice sized algae bloom going for the last several months. Don't mind if he eats coralline.

The tank will be sps dominated, with some lps and softies thrown in for variety. Current livestock is: 3 green chromis, 2 ocellaris clowns, 1 royal gramma, 1 cleaner shrimp, various snails for clean up crew, 1 large hawaiian duster and several microdusters. Plan to add either a tang, or a couple of other small fish and maybe a couple more cleaner shrimp. Tank is 75g.

No chunks of lr in the tank are smaller than 5 pounds. Will a tuxedo urchin get big enough to knock these pieces over? Rockwork is solid and stable other than one piece that I plan to move to the fuge after I get that set up.

Is there anything I should be taking into consideration with adding an urchin that I haven't thought of?

Thanks!
J.

 

[Anonymous]

The urchin is fine for the tank actually it will not eat coralline. they can knock over loosely placed rock, regardless of size. The uchin will get along with livestock you have and plan to add..

 

[Anonymous]

Well mine eats corraline, leaves little wiggly clear paths. Not at a high or annoying rate, though. My tuxedo is probably gentler than a big turbo, I think large rocks should be ok, if well seated.

Long spine urchins are not reef safe, at least at far as certain organisms are concerned, and they grow very very fast. I learned that recently. Tuxedo is great.

 

[Jolieve]

I like longspine urchins, but I won't put one in my reef tank. Maybe, in the future, if I ever set up a fowlr, I'll have a longspine or two. Right now... I don't have room for anymore tanks, so we'll see what happens ;-)

Thanks guys! I'll go ahead and plan to get the tuxedo next.
J.

 

[Anonymous]

yeah i think the tuxedo is a good choice and its reef safe..keep good water parameters and it will do fine..remember urchins are picky for the most part when it comes to water quality..if it starts to lose spines rapidy, you have a problem.

 

[Anonymous]

I put a tuxedo in my 75 when I was going through the hair algea thing a couple of years ago. He did tend to pick small things up and carry them around on ocassion. I would sometimes have to go in and "save" a crab, snail or small frag.

I put my tux in the fuge after my hair algea problem was over where he has resided of over a year with no problems. He does a good job of cleaning the fuge.

I think I may move him into my 38G nano since I have a small hair algea problem in that tank.

Louey

 

[Jolieve]

That's right, tuxedos are the pack rat urchins, the ones that like to decorate themselves with pieces of rubble, shells and whatever else they can find to make them more difficult to notice...

Haven't purchased one yet. Still mulling it over a bit, but thanks for the tip about placing him in the fuge once the hair algae is gone in the main tank. I'm adding a fuge after the first of the year and it might not be a bad idea to move him there once the fuge has grown up a bit. How big do they get? The largest I've seen have been about the size of a tennis ball, do they get much bigger than this?

Thanks!
J.