Long Spine Urchin in Small Tank???

[Myka]

As many of you know I have some baby Bangaii Cardinals. I was looking through our local classifieds and happened upon an ad for a "small black long spine urchin". Now, I have seen some tiny 1" long spine urchins, and I've seen some well over 12". I left a message to find out what the actual size of it is. I have my little baby Bangers in a 10 gallon right now. It is an established tank having been setup for over a year, however it is BB, just has an AquaClear 100 for filtration, only PVC for hiding, and a single astraea snail to keep it low on the algae. The Bangers are in one of those "net breeder" thingies to protect them from the AquaClear until they get bigger.

The long spine urchin is a natural hideout for the baby Bangers...what would I have to do to keep this urchin in the tank with them? How quickly will it grow? What does it eat?

[Der_Iron_Chef]

Mine quickly outgrew my 55G. It eats coraline algae as well as other algaes. Fairly easy to keep, in my opinion.

[Myka]

There is no coralline in my 10 gallon...hmm might outgrow it too fast then eh? What size was yours when you first got it? What size was it when it outgrew the 55? How long did you have it?

[digital-audiophile]

Any full sized long spines urchines I have seen are huge. FWIW I wouldn't even consider putting one in my tank.

[fishoholic]

[quote=Myka;293554]There is no coralline in my 10 gallonQUOTE]

We had one in our 120g and the only thing we noticed it eating was coralline, it might starve if there's no coralline for it to eat. Ours was huge, not sure how fast they grow but ours was bigger then an ice-cream pail bucket.

[NateL]

Ours got huge in a 46bow, man lurch was mean. When ever I had my arm in the tank, it would make its way over and stab me.

[Myka]

LOL...ok this doesnt sound like a good idea then. Bummer...sorry little Bangers no urchin for you!

[Delphinus]

You can feed them, my longspine urchin enjoys flake food and pellets (just need to shoot the food using a turkey baster into the spines - it finds the food - it's kindof freaky watching an urchin catch flake food, who'da thunk they could do that?? )

But, no way would I have mine in a 10g. When I got mine it was small, like 2" across tip-to-tip, body the size of a dime... but it was body the size of a quarter and 6" across within a couple weeks ... and body the size of a toonie a couple weeks later ... I have no idea it's fully extended length nowadays but the body is the size of a raquetball. Anyhow I was surprised how quickly it grew .. so I don't think a 10g would work well I'm afraid.

You might want to look into making a surrogate urchin for those banggai fry. Probably could get away with something as simple as some underwater epoxy wadded into a ball, and a bunch of swizzle sticks or narrow straws jammed into it...

[Myka]

^ Holy wowzers!!! That's one fast growing urchin!! EEK!

I have some spikey looking fake plants in with the Bangers weighted upsidedown with some epoxy. They seem to like it. LOL.

[untamed]

That's what you need....a fake urchin. You just want it for a home for your babies, without all the trouble associated with keeping a live one. Even a fake one would look better than your net breeder thing.