purple pincushion urchin confusion

[scotty37]

For those of you who had seen my previous post on this, I had all but written off my urchin as dead after not moving for a few days. I was just waiting for the pins to fall out for confirmation. Today, the pins fall out and the urchin finally takes off. What does this mean? I figure he is still dying?

 

[fishgeek01]

wow, that almost defies the general rules of urchinism. i know that the one i had would periodically lose some of his spines like he was shedding, and i assume that maybe they do, however yours has some odd behavior. not sure what to tell you, suffice to say i got rid of my urchin because i got tired of cleaning up all of the corals he would knock over, and having to place frags from where he was breaking my sps

 

[debbie]

I had a purple pincushion urchin for 6 months. IMO urchins need a large tank, lots and lots of live rock as this is their natural food source. Do we really know "exactly" what they eat for sure? We do know that they love our live rock with the beautiful coraline algae on it.
If your urchin is loosing its spines this might or might not be a sign of distress. Mine started that before it died. Shortly after that all the spines were falling out.
I truly believe that this urchin starved to death. I spot fed mine everyday but I really don't think that is was enough. I really love urchins and believe that they should be left to those with huge tanks, lots of rock and a very mature system too, or better yet observe them in their natural home "the ocean".
Best of luck.....

 

[xdave]

"urchinism" Fishgeek01 you totally made that word up. Did you mean urchinariology ?
But on the serious side. They need a lot of algae. We always but buised spinach in their tank. Just pound on a spinach leaf on the counter and set something on it in the bottom.