HELP - Rock-boring urchin

[pchristie]

Hi all! I have been reading your forum for about two months. Just set up my first sw tank this past Saturday. When I came home with my live rock, I unwrapped the paper to find this brown and white polka dotted creature living in my rock. Being a newbie, I called my local dealer and he said to put in tin the tank. I have been everywhere I know of on the net and can only find info stating he is a rock-boring urchin and eats algea. Anyone know about them? Do they eats coral, etc? Would like to know before my tank cycles....Thanks so much!

[yousuredo]

i am somewhat a newbie as well, but i think i read that they eat the rock it-self and what ever is on it (algea/???)

[jdbassin]

Well I have two rock boring urchins in my tank, They can bore into rock and cause structural problems but prefer to graze on algea if enough is available. This also includes coraline algea!!!!! They can be bothersome to corals especially lps and sps, So far mine haven't done anything bad other then eat my coraline but it grows back so fast in my tank I won't worry about it. So If you willing to take a chance that it may eventually kill of a coral or eat away your coraline keep it with a close on on it though. But if you don't have much algea and the loss of a coral would really hurt ya. Get rid of it. Also I would say that if you notice any burrowing in the rock get rid of it asap. Mine are going in the refugium as soon as I get my new tank fully up and running just to be on the safe side. I guess what I'm trying to say in the end here is "NO" they are not reef safe but if your daring they can be neat to watch for a while. Safest to put them in the sump or refuge though.

jd

[Geoff]

they are generally fine. they are great at keeping the algae under control. they allow coraline algae to take hold because the actually scrape the rock down completely. this removes the film algae that hinders the growth of coralline. since they also eat the coralline they release the coralline spores. this allows the coralline to spread more rapidly.

their biggest problem is the fact that they are very clumbsy. they will knock over anything that is not securely planted.

G~

[btang]

Hey pchristie, Welcome to TRT! We love pic's of any new project (well at least I do). Tell us more about your setup.

[pchristie]

Thanks to all the responses. Still not sure whether to keep him or not. I LOVE THIS WEBSITE.