Please identify this urchin

[Chowder]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

+1

Aka "math" urchin - Echinometra mathaei.

Fairly hardy but have a rather annoying tendency to rearrange rockwork in our tanks. Mine is sumped at the moment because I grew weary of fixing the landslides. I bought mine because, well, I do kinda like them, you see them all over the place in Hawaii and I like Hawaii better than Calgary but I live in Calgary and not Hawaii so anything I can do to remind myself of Hawaii is a good thing although it tends to more often than not just remind me that I am, not, in fact, in Hawaii and then life just starts to suck. But also because they will sometimes eat caulerpa and other macros and I needed some help keeping that stuff at bay. But alas, it turns out that "sometimes" means the same as "sometimes not" and guess which category mine fell into? Not the caulerpa eating helpful category, but the "Your Feng Shui is all wrong, here let me help" kind of helpful category. Stupid urchins.

Hey Tony do you like Hawaii?

[lorenz0]

I don't know if I'm a bad person or not, but I love laughing at your expense tony ha

not all the time but its entertaining

my rock urchin lives in the sump as well. Fat little bugger

[DACJ]

Hah, thanks for the input guys!

My tank had some caulerpa when it was initially setup, but I removed them all by hand long before this one was introduced into the tank, so I have no idea whether mine eats or not and I only see them at night...but I supposed all urchins are beneficial one way or another only got worried cuz it grew so much so fast.

I had to draw it out with measurement cuz I couldn't remove it from the tank =D and there was nothing to compare to anyway =P

[FishyFishy!]

Mine stripped a whole tonne of nice thick coraline off my established rocks.... so be weary!