Maintenance or Menace: Let's talk Urchins!

[AlyciaMarie]

Before I had an Urchin, I thought they were one of the coolest creatures my eyes have ever beheld. After owning one, I still think that! But I also think they are one of the more annoying creatures my eyes have ever beheld! When I hired my Urchin to maintain my tank and do some GHA annihilating, I didn't expect it to lose all sense of its professionalism, disregard its job description, and take the whole tank on a joy ride...

Is your Urchin the tank maintenance man or the tank menace? Show off your Urchins!

Enjoy this image of my Urchin, Archie, taking the GSP and Zoas on a guided tank tour. When he's not toting the frags around, you can find him bulldozing my mushrooms, improving his GHA toupee, or bullying the anemone. I am in the thick of a GHA Battle (don't judge me), but I am happy to report that Archie is doing his job; he's just having a little fun and causing a lot of chaos while doing it. Secondary question: Should I make Adventures with Archie a Reef2Reef thread series? Just kidding...Maybe.

 

[Reefer Matt]

I love my urchins for their algae cleaning abilities, but they like to carry my snails with them. Then the snails get detached and left upside down and end up in weird places. They also like to become mobile frag racks in frag tanks.

 

[luis angel]

I think mine loves to kidnap corals and others

 

[AlyciaMarie]

Hahaha! That little hermit crab being swept away is SO funny! Poor guy

 

[kevgib67]

Mine intimidates everyone in the tank, especially crabs. I don’t know why .

 

[jabberwock]

Daredevil...

 

[Dburr1014]

Just gotta keep stuff anchored and you're good.

 

[aquadise]

Used to keep urchin twice, but end up with sold them because they're always strong enough to move my layout around. I think only tank with sand bend can keep them.

 

[VintageReefer]

No. Had a long spine. Never again

Had a tuxedo. Much better than long spine. But also, never again.

Spines + Clumsiness + lps = no good in my experience

 

[Gumbies R Us]

our tuxedo urchin does a great job at clearing out GHA, but at the same time does a good job moving our zoa drag around the tank.

 

[phillyb614]

My urchin has been such a beast at eating the GHA outbreak in my 20 gallon, I don’t even care that he is using one of my better zoa frags as a hat. You earned it buddy!

 

[907_Reefer]

Old pic

 

[Timfish]

They're as essential for captive reefs as they are for wild reefs. What's fascinating is seeing individual prefferences bewteen individuals of the same species. And as is true for any group of beings there's always an outlier willing to challenge the status quo .