Good Or Bad Urchin?

[rastaangel]

I was doing a water change today and I happen to come across this little urchin... which is very weird cuz all of my rock I made myself, musta hitched hiked on coral like the green BTA I found. Hes purple with blunt, sparse tips.
But anyways I have him trapped at the moment and I was wondering if hes a good one to keep or will he munch on all my corals and should not be realeased?

[Leah]

It is very cute!:biggrin:

[rastaangel]

Lol cute things tend to do alot of damage in my experience

[Chowder]

Looks like a rock borring urchin.

http://www.magnergraphix.com/ScubaPics/creaturepix/Urchin.html



Chris

[rastaangel]

ya thats what he looks like except purple... says they bore dens in corals and rocks which is no good

[mike31154]

I always thought porous rock was beneficial. That little critter doesn't look like he'd do that much damage. No experience with these guys, I did have a couple of pencil urchins, but they expired some time ago. Wouldn't mind a blue tuxedo urchin in the future.

[reeferious]

send it to me and i'll cover shipping cost. postal code V5N 1R7

[lorenz0]

I have one in my sump, awesome little guy

[rastaangel]

Lol why would you have wanted it? Its gone, my friends trigger made a meal of it as soon as I found out that it would could eat holes in my corals

[whatcaneyedo]

I have a rock boring urchin (Echinometra lu****er) in my frag system with... lets just say 40 different species of coral because I don't feel like counting. I've had it for probably three years now and the only problem it's given me is that it will eat at the silicone seam on a glass aquarium. Which is why its in my frag trough. In all of this time its never actually tried boring a hole in any of my rock or coral. Without any silicone it seems to be quite contempt to eat coraline algae all day and leave everything else alone.

[Funky_Fish14]

Lol they wont eat holes in corals. I've had two of slightly different colours for a long time, maybe 3 years? And i've had a couple others for about a year in the past. Never had any problems with my rock or corals. I definitely would take it. They are entertaining for people, slow moving, dont knock anything over. I myself like them :)

Cheers,

Chris

[Funky_Fish14]

Hah, I must have been writing as whatcanyedo posted...

None of mine have every damaged my silicone, and I rarely see them on the glass.

Cheers,

Chris

[whatcaneyedo]

I used to have 3 different tanks so I tried the urchin in all of them but he kept going after the silicone... It was too weird to be normal so I assume that most are like yours and wouldn't do that.

[Funky_Fish14]

Hmm, interesting and odd.