Pencil urchin killing live rock???

leftyblite

leftyblite

Member
I was given a pencil urchin a while back for my fowler tank. I researched it before I took it but I noticed that wherever it touches the live rock, the live rock is turning white. Is it killing my live rock??? There are no coral in the tank. I really dont want all my live rock to die. Any help would greatly be appreciated.
 
al mc

al mc

Active Member
They 'eat' the coraline and other algae off the surface of the rock and 'spit out' or grind off some of the rock in the process. IMHO they will not affect the bacteria for your nitrogen cycle.
 
murf48

murf48

Member
The Question is not if the rock will die, the rock is already dead. I think you want to ask if anything will grow back? Given enough time to cure I think you should'nt have any trouble. I'm not sure if urchins leave any bad stuff on the rock, someone else can answer that, but I think the rock should be ok
 
ninjamini

ninjamini

Active Member
Pencil urchins eat coraline. Any anything else thats in its way of the coraline. But they also help spread the coraline. Your rock will grow. It just takes time.
He will however eat some corals. I had mine eat yellow polyps.
 
kelly

kelly

Member
the live rock will be ok, but if you want it to have to coralline, you may want to consider removing the urchin
 
flricordia

flricordia

Active Member
It will be fine. Yes, urchins eat coraline. It will grow back but the urchin will probably consume it before it gets a chance if the tank isn't large enough. It will probably come down to keeping either the urchin and bare rock or coraline covered rock and no urchin.
 
ophiura

ophiura

Active Member
If your tank has the right CHEMISTRY to grow coralline, then it will be fine. It is beyond the ability of the urchin to kill it all on its own, if it is a reasonable amount of LR, and there is some reason to believe it spreads the coralline as well. If you don't notice the coralline growing, you'll want to address your chemistry.
I would spot feed the urchin some bits of algae sheets (rubber band this to a rock and drop near the urchin...or drop shrimp or spirulina pellets (mix it up now and then) between the spines.
 
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