blue tuxedo urchin

[JBrowning]

My urchin has been doing fine. He typically has several items, shells, pieces of sand, etc.. attached to himself, which is normal. But yesterday he had covered himself with algae and sand, so there is tons of it hanging off of him. He is still active and seems fine, but this looks strange and I am a bit worried about him. Any thoughts??

 

[The steven liu]

He might have just been grazing near the bottom of the tank. I have seen urchins in our store carrying anything not moving in the tank. So I am not surprised if they carry algae and sand/pebbles.

 

[racrumrine]

As long as it is eating, it should be fine.

Mine has carried, mushrooms, snails and even the floating thermometer.

If there is something on it you don't like, you can gently pull it off with tweezers.

Best of luck,

Roy

 

[romunov]

They presumebly do that to avoid predation (when a starfish touches them, they don't know that there's a tasty meal below those pebbles.

 

[JBrowning]

Hey, thanks for the replies. I will keep an eye on him. He is definately moving around and eating, so he should be fine, I have just never seen him with so much stuff hanging off of him. He looks like a swamp creature.

 

[fijireef]

Every once in a while I'll target feed mine. He takes the entire sheet of algae and sticks it on his body..prefers a meal to go I guess

 

[JBrowning]

how do you target feed him? His mouth is never exposed.

 

[EventHorizon2K2]

Yeah, I just bought a rose pink urchin, and he came with some snails and a hermit crab on him. I guess he liked the company? Everyone left him as soon as I put him in the tank. The hermit that came with him immediately abandoned his shell for one of the large ones already in the tank. The urchin spent the rest of the day "naked," then stuck the old shell from the hermit on his back again, and it's been ther ever since. It looks a bit silly. Maybe he liked the purple and pink coralline algae that is on it. Think I'll name him Linus.

 

[fijireef]

Target feed him as in..put algae sheet on rock next to him. He moves over on top of sheet and consumes it. Or I'll hold it near his body and he'll "grab" onto it and take the sheet to go!

 

[fijireef]

Oh..one more thing..this guy is a coralline eater but the "target feeding" method I have used kept him off my coralline. So if your needing extra growth this method keeps 'em busy