pencil urchin question

[meisacao]

I got a pencil urchin a few days ago and he is doing great, but here's my question. I know that he scrapes algae from the rocks to eat, but what in the world is he "pooping" out? Is it rock that he is grinding up while he is scraping for algae? Just curious because there are three big piles of it in my tank. I'm getting ready to do a water change today and I couldn't figure out what that was.

 

[who dey]

no clue? never seen a pencil "poop" before

 

[wareagle]

I have seen my pencil drop a deuce. The droppings appeared to be crushed rock. I recently removed him from my tank b/c he is a bulldozer and didn't like waking up to coral upside down

 

[meisacao]

I guess you learn something new everyday, because I had no idea this thing could grind up rocks and poop them out!!

He hasn't knocked anything over yet, but he's only been in the tank for a few days so I guess we'll see. At any rate, he's really fun to watch when he's awake!

 

[bubles]

I had one pencil before, if you have any color on your rock say bye bye cause these little guys will only eat rock. when they sale it to you they tell you they only eat algea and thats true but my ate all my color until I decided to get him out, good luck with your pencil

 

[murph145]

yup i got rid of my urchin a while back too cuz he decided he loved coraline and he could eat that stuff fast

 

[wareagle]

thats what they eat, coraline. i never say mine eat too much har algae. just knock stuff over and eat coraline