Spine Coverings for Urchins!!!!!

[renogaw]

one other reason is my urchin drops its spines every once in a while so you'd constantly have to keep doing it

 

[jmick]

I find it hard to believe that anyone would seriously or even in jest consider putting coverings on an urchins spins. If it's not suitable for your seahorse tank then it's not and I don't see why you'd feel the need to force the issue.

 

[snapperboy]

Ok, here's a couple pictures of my purple urchin. I think that if you attempted to work with the spines for very long or mishandled it, they would detach quite easily, but grow back extremely fast. They must be constantly growing and losing them because i do see some occasionally in the sandbed. I resuced this one from a friends tank who had a strawberry hermit hitch on LFS LR and immediately began snipping the spines off like a barber. The hermit was extremely relentless and his agressiveness was appealing to my bud, so i got a free urchin. These guys will literally grind small trails and clearings shaving a thin layer of your LR off. I've read that they EAT and get nutrition from coralline, (hes got to get his purple pigment from somewhere huh?) But i've observed this urchin to be a benefit from this becasue he must be spreading the spores everywhere he goes. There are places that where "dead, dull, white, brown, ect." on my LR, now, after it has been given a grind over, i see purple spots forming on all my rocks. I only have a bubble coral, 2 frogspawns, crocea clam, and a coralline rock with mini purple/green star dusters for corals, and the urchin avoids them all. As it gets close to the soft tissue of the coral the urchins "tentacles" or "feelers" extend and it then senses its away around it. I DO think my only colony of zoo's met its end after i added him. So .. think twice about these guys in a full blown reef.
no spines?...no cool glass surfing

Oh ya they do re-arrange rocks, shells, shells with hermits stuck upside down on them :hilarious