Quick Help Please...... Urchin Advice!

dakota9

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OK guys, never owned an urchin before, but at January's meeting, Gary (Hayabusa) offered me an urchin for free, and on impulse (yeah, even us Ole Salts </em>do that occasionally) I took it. Of course when purchasing on impulse, theres no way to fully learn about the care, but I studied up a bit after purchasing, just don't know what these symptoms are.

It's been great in my tank so far, removing what lil nuisance algae I had in the first month. My room mate started his tank and green algae started taking over and I put the urchin in there and he cleared that up, then back in my tank he went to graze on the coraline after another month......

Got tired of him knocking my prized corals over, so went to acclimate him to go back in the roomie's tank tonight and now I'm concerned.

Was acclimating him in a specimen cup, and after a hour or so using turkey baster to shoot alil water in every once in a while, I noticed these sand like particles falling off of him, just a few, but larger particles then what normally fall off him while he's climbing the glass. Then, he started expelling what looked to be smoke...... Now the specimen cup looks all cloudy, like I can see the urchin in the cup, but can't see "through" the cup into the tank?

Is he dying?

He's still stuck to the side wall of the cup with feelers flailing about as usual, but if he's on his way out, I'd like to do it humanely (Coming from someone who used to flush fish at the first sign of infection).

Roomie doesn't want him in his tank, not thinkin I want him back in mine....

What to do?

Advice?

I liked him, but if he's dying, don't think I'll be getting another one.
 
It's a hang on tank specimen cup, specifically for aquariums, you've seen them in every fish store.

I thought I acclimated him slowly enough, and he should have had plenty of oxygen.

It looked like some sort of spawning when it first started, but I find it hard to believe it's going to be doing that just at the exact time I'm acclimating.
 
Anyone? This lil guy is going to live in the specimen cup indefinitely unless I find out something.... I'm hitting up google now......
 
http://www.thekrib.com/Marine/urchins.html">http://www.thekrib.com/Marine/urchins.html</a>

Found this.....
 
And this..........

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OK, its been over an hour and a half since he goo'ed the specimen cup........

I'm going to throw away the goo water as I siphon it out of the cup and replace it with tank water...... I'll have him in the tank within the next 30.....
 
I've had a few urchins, and they all have done this at one point or another, usually after water changes. Maybe something to do with change in salinity?
 
I had three urchins have this happen all at once in a 130-140g system. No ill effects on the rest of the tank.

Dakota9;501520 wrote: Did the event mess with any of your parameters?

Thanks
 
There's a joke in there someplace...

"Do you smoke after... "

Never mind :) Gotta keep it a G-rated thread! :lol:
 
JennM;501852 wrote: There's a joke in there someplace...

"Do you smoke after... "

Never mind :) Gotta keep it a G-rated thread! :lol:


Last night, after it was suggested that the smoking was a spawning event, I thought about mentioning that I was headed to my bathroom to smoke, myself.....


(it's the only place in the house I smoke *cigarettes* when the kid is home....)
 
ROFL!

Well at least we're sorta-kinda on the same page...

You should have offered the urchin a cigarette!

Jenn
 
reeferJ;501518 wrote: I've had a few urchins, and they all have done this at one point or another, usually after water changes. Maybe something to do with change in salinity?

You are spot on man! Today my Pencil Urchin squirted a few streams of white paste... and it was right after water change!

I got worried if it is going to meet the maker, so decided to search ARC and found this thread. :yay:
 
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