Long Spine Sea Urhin (any experiance with?)

[stickx911]

I really want to get a black long spine sea urchin, but the finance thinks they'll eat all the coraline. I hear that that can happen, but is not usually the case. Are they generally reef safe or no?

What is your experiance with them? Were they neat, a pain, or...? Thanks again

 

[stickx911]

lol, I went to bobs once, his urchin tank was like spotless of any algae. i didnt know if they all ate like that, or no...i assume yes, but just curious.

 

[raisingtwo2006]

I didn't have a longspine, but my urchin ate the coraline like a mad man!! Which wouldn't have been so bad except he ate it in a zig zaggy crazy pattern that make it look terrible. AND he knocked everything off that wasn't glued down.. and a few things that were.

After a couple months of 'putting up' with him.. I took him back to the LFS.

 

[george]

I had one of these years ago (like 1997) and I called it "The Crystalline Entity" after the Star Trek thing that carved swaths of bare dirt out of planets. That's what your coraline will look like.

 

[stickx911]

lol, ok thanks guys. I may get one down the road, but not for this tank.

 

[bobz]

Ricky,
Nuff said! If it wasn't for the Bangaii's I'd banish them to my sump with the my pincushion urchin. I do think they are really cool though and if you have a tank set up where you are not concerned about coraline covered glass and liverock then I say go for it....besides, always best to keep the fiance happy!
BZ

 

[dannybradley]

They're really neat until you're scraping algae and forget that you have one. The spines don't contain venom but that doesn't make them fun to remove.
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I've done it at least 6 times.