New Urchin, New Videos
 

So we brought home a long spined urchin a few days ago. Was hoping it would munch on some of the getting-to-be-nuisance macroalgae, but so far the urchin has only eaten coralline and rock :neutral:

We've been playing "find the urchin" during the day with the monster Christmas gift flashlight. Heck, we play "find the urchin" at night with the flashlight, too :biggrin:

Yesterday, the urchin was roaming around way after the halides went on and I got some footage of it....

Long Spined Urchin, Diadema savignye, February 2, 2007
(320 x 240 pixels, 4.5 MB, :59 minutes)

Last night, it was on the front glass, so out came the camera....

Long Spined Urchin on the Glass at Night, February 2, 2007
(320 x 240 pixels, 3.9 MB, :50 minutes)

Enjoy!

What? Nobody wants to see cool urchin videos?

Just watched them. Cool urchin :cool:

I'm amazed how fast mine has gone from about 1.5"-2" across (needle end to needle end) to about 7"-8" minimum. Body has gone from a dime to about a quarter or even loonie sized. In the space of about one month, well, maybe a month and a half by now.

Urchins and algae
 

I have a sea urchin which is about the same size as yours, but I've never seen it eating any nuisance algae over the last couple of years (maybe our urchins are closely related!). I haven't seen it on the glass in my tank, although I do have a large amount of rock in my set up ... about 230 pounds in a 90 gallon tank. Maybe the urchin gets its kicks just eating coraline off of rock?

Wow, Tony, that's quite a bit of growth. Saw the pics of your urchin. Interesting colour on its pointy things.

Brian,

Does your urchin eat the rock along with the coralline? We've got small holes in the rock where it's eaten. We can almost chart its course from the night before by the barren rock.

Very Nice Bev. Kind of creepy music to go with it too :biggrin:

Bev you don't find your urchin to be an annoyance in the reef? i found mine was always knocking EVERYTHING over! it didn't matter if it was glued down or not. and i only had a short spined urchin i cant even imagine what a long spined urchin would be like.

Richard

Stan,

Creepy music for a kinda creepy subject :)

Richard,

The body of our long spine is about the size of a quarter. I've watched it navigate on the rock. Its long spines seem to help it know where it's going, and the urchin pulls its spines out of the way when it touches corals. Don't know how much of a nuisance it's going to be when it gets larger, though.

Cool Vid great soundtrack.