long spine urchins with money snails, serpent stars

[norfolkgarden]

5 years experience is SW but new to keeping urchins. Saw 2 long spines and 2 black short spines at LFS between a dime and a nickel in size. Should take a while before they are real bulldozers.

Will long spine black, short spine black or pencil urchins eat money snails (4 yrs old), zoa or mushrooms? (eating coraline algae is fine)
Will the urchins get along with banded grey serpent stars, reddish orange serpent stars or black brittle stars?

Thanks!

[Ron Reefman]

I can't help much, but I'd be doing some SERIOUS checking into how long it takes for long spined urchins to become full size. I see them when we snorkel in the Florida Keys and they are a foot in diameter! If these are from the South Pacific they get even bigger (20")!!! And trying to move one, even a small one, in your tank is going to be very difficult as the spines are very sharp. There is a reason why most reefers don't have them in a reef tank with corals and fish.

Your situation is not unlike mine. I just got a Hawaiian Red Reef Lobster and it gets a 50g cube all to himself because he has been a proven fish eater in other peoples tanks.

[norfolkgarden]

when I was stationed in Hawaii we would occasionally get stabbed by them if we weren't paying enough attention out scuba diving.
Most of the threads I've read while searching said they grow fast! Main concern is the urchins not eating what we already have.

If the urchins make it to pan size I'll cook up some rice. ��

[norfolkgarden]

Quick update. 2 long spines went from between a dime and a nickel sized to larger than a quarter size in five months.

The smaller of the two was returned in a plastic container.
The second one is doing fine and turns out to be mostly variegated. The smaller was also becoming variegated but I got tired of having to try to move both of them when I needed to add something or do something in the tank.
Getting poked by the spines got annoying.

They do a job on the coralline algae but we have plenty of that and it grows back quickly.


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[norfolkgarden]

Gave away the second long spine urchin wallet was still small enough to transport easily. It happened to be high up on one of the rocks and all I had to do was tip it into a plastic container to catch it without hurting it.

Still have the two small black short spines (now between a nickel and a quarter size) and the one quarter size reddish urchin with 1/2" spikes.

In a five-month period the long spines went from a little bigger than a dime to just over a quarter size.


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[norfolkgarden]

Long spine urchin

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[Ron Reefman]

I now have a short spine black urchin that came in with some TBS live rock I tried. In the last 4 months it has grown from dime to quarter size! But I have it in a 65g shallow reef that is just for local stock and there is no stony corals to knock over.

Last trip to the Keys, a few weeks ago, I brought home 2 small variegated tuxedo urchins and put them in my 50g cube display refugium with Hannibal the red Hawaiian reef lobster. So far so good.