Urchin trouble

[bad_fish]

Help, my pin cushin sea urchin is losing all its spines. It hasn't really moved in several days and yesterday my choclate chip starfish started munching on it. The urchin is still alive, I can see it moving the spines (what are left) and its little sucker tips, but it doesn't look good.
Any thoughts?!
thanks

 

[striker]

I'm pretty sure it's the water. What are your readings. High nitrates or amonia? They will lose their spines and eventually die in bad conditions.

 

[carrie1429]

My sea urchin did this too. He lost all his spines until he was bald. Sometimes it can be the water conditions or I've heard that sometimes they just do that as they get bigger or something. Anyway my sea urchins spines grew back after a couple weeks.

 

[striker]

I have to disagree with urchins losing their spines in order to grow. From what I've read, heard and experienced so far I haven't come across that statement. I have 2 urchins that hitched on my lr about 5 months ago and they were initialy were smaller than a dime. Since then they've grown tremendous(about 10X their original size). They never lost any of their spines during this growth. I was even considering giving one away because I thought they'd be a nuisance and eat all my coraline but so far they're behaving and the coraline is spreading faster than they can eat it. I would test the water or have a lfs test it for you to find out what's wrong. Hopefully when it's resolved the spines will grow back and it will get healthy.

 

[bang guy]

If an urchin is losing it's spines it's probably a goner. The most likely reason is osmotic shock. If you did a water change and the salinity of the new water was a lot different than the tank water that could have done it.
A heavy topoff all at once is enough to kill them. Acclimation periods for them range from many hours to a day depending on the salinity difference.

 

[bluemarlin]

Yup. The loss of the spines is due to water conditions. Anytime an Urchin starts losing its spines it is due to poor water quality. Liek the others have asked, What are your numbers?

 

[kris walker]

Could an urchin lose it's spines and die if it wasn't getting enough food? Is this a possibility in your case?
kris

 

[bluemarlin]

Kris,
Normally the loss of the spines is due to water quality issues. Urchins are very good at finding food. If there is any algae growing they will find it. Mine moves all over the place and is, realitivey speaking, very fast. He eats everything he finds.

 

[bad_fish]

thanks all for the advice, sorry I could not post sooner, was out of town. I figured the urchin was a gonner, it did die. My LFS suggested it was starving as I had an algae problem recently, but have changed timer on the light, so most of the algae died off. I put some seaweed under it, but it was too far gone by that point. Most likely was the water as many of you suggested, I am not nearly as careful with my water changes as most of you describe.
Anyway, thanks all, I wish I would have asked for help sooner, the urchin was a beautiful creature.
Brian