Are urchins reef safe?

[kpatrick]

Depending on what site you look at same say yes urchins are reef safe and others say they arent. Anyone want to share their experiences or thoughts?

 

[maurice]

Well i have heard the same things myself,so i decided to give them a try.What i can tell you from experience is this,they are like a Bull in a Chinashop. :hilarious However i never had either of mine eat any corals,just knock them around and off the rocks,so i took them out!

 

[murph145]

i doubt they will eat corals but like mentioned before they are known to know things over and are notoriouis coraline algae eaters.... i had one that cleaned an entire rock of its coraline algae so i took him back to the LFS no more urchins in my reef....

 

[speg]

Some types are and some types are not. Urchines generally do no do well in a reef because they tend to knock things over and poke delicate corals.
Also some urchines will attach things to themselves as they move around... creating problems... even though they might not harm corals.. they may decide to bring a coral along with them

 

[f1shman]

Urchin: "hey check out my new leather coat" (leather coral) haha

 

[speg]

I was at a beach here in FL.. and I was snorkling.. while snorkling I noticed a bunch of shells all massed together in a small ball and I went down to see what it could be... it was a type of urchine with shells stuck all over its body.
Apparently those urchines feel they need even more protection than just their sharp spines alone.

 

[57chev]

Kpatrick, Maurice is right in my opinion to a point, some times urchins are like a porkypine in a baloon factory.

I have twelve long spiny urchins in a 150 reef, their hardy as heck! And there is nothing better for hair algea control. It seems to go in spurts in my tank as far as when they tip things over for some reason, probably means nothing. They are reef safe I beleive. The long spiny's dont seem to care what time of the day it is, the pencil type urchins seem to come out from behind the reef at night mostly.

 

[ncsc117]

I like urchins very much

I had a pencil urchin, and it eat all types of algae. Never botherd my mushroom coral. Im actuly planning on getting another Pencil Urchin to eat my hair algae :happy:

 

[ophiura]

The real problem is the common names are not consistent. That is the problem.
True pencil urchins (Eucidaris) are the only urchins avialable in the hobby that I DO NOT consider reef safe. Long spines, tuxedo, rock boring...those should be reef safe. But they can eat coralline and they can bulldoze. Many pick up rocks and shells to camouflage themselves.

 

[larrynews]

i had 2 as hitch hickers...they were eating my coraline off my rocks, so i got rid of them

 

[murph145]

i had the rock boring type... he was very good at keeping nuicance algae under control but as soon as there was no more for him to munch on he turned to the coraline which was kinda a bummer... they are cool looking creatures and i woula liked to keep him but he was just too hungry for coraline ....