Urchin Eating Coral!

[R3verb]

So I looked today and one of my Long Black Spined Urchins is EATING MY CORAL! He devoured my GSP, broke my purple digi, and now he is on top of my toadstool. He always left my brain coral alone and hasn't messed with my mushrooms, any ideas? I really like him but he has to go if he's going to eat coral!

 

[little_fish]

oh no!

Pull him ASAP! And i have no idea why he would do that.

And you can have some more GSP

 

[R3verb]

Thanks LF. I think I am going to have to give him to the LFS :-/.

 

[FishyReef]

Yup, pull him. It won't get any better - trust me, I know! (hence my 10g urchin jail)

 

[R3verb]

ok another question. I have 2 of these guy but only one seems to be doing all the damage. What is the likelihood that the other will start to do the same thing?

 

[little_fish]

Considering that they are normally reef safe and its very odd that they are going after your coral, i would say the chances are small

 

[Smitty]

Oh wow, yeah pull him out. Does he have enough food in the tank to eat, to keep it from eating the corals. If their food sources run out, that may be the reason why he's eating corals.

 

[R3verb]

I dont feed him anything but there is algae in the tank. Any way to feed em?

 

[Smitty]

The algae should be enough for them, but you can supplement their feedings with algae sheets.

 

[FishyReef]

R3verb, I've been target feeding mine krill since it went after my corals and then the snails in its new home. My LFS suggested that since it was an omnivore and was going after fleshier foods that maybe it would help to feed it something meaty. At first the food just floated and the urchin couldn't get it (duh!), but if I push a piece close to it it will readily grab it with its spines and then move it to its mouth. I watched it take in a large piece of krill with no problem the other day! Maybe try something similar and see if it helps? I don't know how it would be in a tank with other critters though, since fish or other inverts might try to snatch the food before the urchin is able to move it to its mouth... I guess you'll have to play around with it and see. I'm also not sure how that will work with a long-spined urchin - mine is a short-spined and it could easily move the food from its spines to its mouth. I guess you could try it and see what happens.