spineless urchin

[dixonstanley50]

has anyone had any luck reviving an urchin that has lost his spines? our long spine has been missing all of them for monthes now and hey are not growing back. maybe because of trates....around 10 now, do they grow back or is there anything we can do?these are before and after pics

 

[dixonstanley50]

Also our other urchin is now looking sick.. has white spots and loosing spines. We are removing it to a hospital tank but our spineless looks ok - no spines but eats and is active. Any suggestions?

 

[Brian_G]

in the pictures above the left is a black spine urchin and the right is a tuxedo urchin.The tuxedo will never grow longer spines. You can always tell when a tuxedo is healthy when is carrying things around on its back. The black spine will lose its spines when it is severely stressed. High nitrates would be a good way to stress one out.

I definitely recommend doing a large water change. 40-50% to cut your nitrates in half.

 

[parrotchute]

What are your ammonia, no2, no3 levels?
What kind of filtration are you using?

 

[Waddi]

Looks like the same urchin but looks like its gone pincushion/tuxedo!?! :?

 

[Sir Alex]

Wow it changed species. :shock:

 

[dixonstanley50]

yep its the same one all right!! i dont know what to think...he seems fine but has no spines amonia is 0 trites 0 and trates are under 10 we have a skimmer and a canister that only has carbon and rubble in it. theres pleanty of coraline in there but we have seen him eat cheato but he eats algae sheets and pellets all the time and seems happy

 

[parrotchute]

hmmm - what do you use to measure your salinity? Any chance that or the temp could be fluctuating? Any chance of stray voltage?

 

[dixonstanley50]

salinity is just with a sg meter and we put a ground probe in a few monthes ago but we did get some temp spikes in the heat of the summer but the spines were falling out long before that. we were maybe thinking it is just old...we heard they dont live that long anyways

 

[parrotchute]

I don't know about how long they live, could be that I guess.
Either way, I'd suggest using a refractometer instead of a hydrometer, if you're not already. Life will be way simpler!