urchin losing spines

[billyocean]

so i have a purple urchin and he seems to be losing all his spines. i first noticed this after i saw my hawaiian puffer go after him a few times. the puffer is now gone but the urchin is losing all of its spines. i did a water change, tested my water parameters and everything seems fine. any advice? :notsure:

 

[cats eye]

Well I had the same problem with my pencil urchin and when he started looding his spines I thought maybe he was shedding them off or something, but then eventually he lost all of them and died. My advice to you would be check your alk, make sure there is no copper in the tank and try and get rid of all stress factors that you can think of. My guess is that your puffer probably picked on it alot while it was in the tank and stressed it out alot and may have even damaged it, so just wait it out and see if it gets better now that your puffer is gone, hope that helps :happyfish

 

[billyocean]

thanks, seems like there are some small spines that are moving around so im sure it is still alive. dont know if those are new spines growing in or old ones not seen because of the bigger ones. thanks though

 

[fishywishy]

Make sure and check your calcium levels. They need to maintain their spines with high levels of nutrients. Also, the short spines are most likely not new spines but a different type of spine. The longer ones are used for protection and end in points. The shorter ones are for moving food to the mouth or pinching enemies and end in two different types of 'claws', while the ones on the bottom, or mouth opening, are for locomotion and end in suckers. Depending on your species it could also have other spikes and pincher parts.
You do not mention what happened to the puffer, which could have been eating the spines. If the puffer died there could be a disease in the tank and a QT might be the way to go. However, I would start with a calcium test and a check on food availability / nutrient reliability for the urchin. They didn't wipe out parts of the California kelp beds when the sea otters were poached because they were anorexic!

 

[billyocean]

thanks, ill check that. the puffer was traded in for a cool little decorator crab and a tiger snail. dont think there is any disease in the tank because everything else is doing fine. (sea cucumber, nudibranch, hippo tang, copperbanded butterfly).

 

[jobob]

mine did the same thing, it turn out to be a problem with water, i think calcium. but after that if i notice the spines falling off i knew there was a problem. mine would drop all spines(the long ones) and go hide behind the rocks. he would come out after about a month when his spines came back.

 

[corally]

Urchins losing their spines is a sign of poor water quality.