Urchin keeps stealing zoa frags

[sharis100]

How do you stop a kleptomaniac pincushion urchin ? Seriously, I keep regluing the frag plugs on the zoa rock to grow a zoa garden, and the urchin will plow through picking and choosing the zoas that have not yet encrusted the rock . Love the urchin and he cleans great so keeping him. Is there a stronger urchin proof glue? Is there a way to encourage the zoas to grow and multiple and encrust faster? Lost one yellow scrambled egg frag plug- no idea where the urchin hid it, but the rest that are not encrusted have been retrieved and glued at least once every few weeks.

 

[york1]

Mine go in the sump if they are disruptive

 

[Gabridge83]

Mine has been keeping small hermit crab shells on him and has left everything else alone

 

[sharis100]

Mine takes hermits live, empty shells, coral frags, anything it can steal and changes outfits every few days so as not to be an outfit repeater…..

 

[Sbear123]

Yeah, urchins have no boundaries and nothing you can really do.

 

[timeconsumer]

Not a solution to your current problem but I've found the short spine urchins (https://www.kpaquatics.com/product/brown-short-spine-urchin/) don't carry any shells or frags around. They clean well too.

 

[sharis100]

Not a solution to your current problem but I've found the short spine urchins (https://www.kpaquatics.com/product/brown-short-spine-urchin/) don't carry any shells or frags around. They clean well too.

Thanks, will have to try one in the future.

 

[Adam]

Pincushion's pickup whatever is available to them in the area they are in. They do this to shade themselves from the light. Once the lights turns off they generally drop what they've grabbed wherever they are. This also includes if they go under rock structures and are no longer getting direct light.

Maybe start the zoa rock in a frag tank to grow out some before placing it in the display.