Urchin eating me out of house and coralline!

[BayBud]

Hi all.

When i started my nano back in June 07 i received an Urchin on a piece of liverock.
Needless to say it has become a fully fledged member of the family lol.

Its a Echinometra mathaei, it really is glorious which is why my sister named it Gloria, besides the point.
The only problem is that its literally eating every scrap of coralline algae in the tank, and being so slow growing im worried she will run out of food.
We have a great marine shop barely ten mins away from us, but all the workers are avid marine fans, which means any of their really nice and heavilly corallined LR is usually taken by the staff lol.

So basically is there anything else i can feed the urchin? Or will i just have to try and get more coralline to grow.

PS: ive been told by some people before to just kill it, but my focus is keeping it healthy.

Thanks in advance all

[phoenixhieghts]

mine has cleaned my tank of all algae - place a seaweed strip on the tank floor, he'll find it and munch away!!

[omard]

Add more calcium and try to stimulate increased coraline growth.

Either that or move urchin along.

Good Luck.

[BayBud]

well my Ca is already around the 450mg/l should i aim for higher?

[Tangster]

There is plenty for it to eat after it eats what it likes first.. Like eating chocolate cake or peas ???? But or Not to worry it will work the rocks and sand to find its food. Only thing with keeping them is damage to corals

[totter0817]

My LFS sold me a supplement to speed up coralline algae growth. It is called Purple Up. I use it about once a week sometimes less than that. I used it in my nano just a few times and within a month everything was purple in my tank includind my sand. Just be careful because it can be easily overused.

[BayBud]

Originally Posted by Tangster

There is plenty for it to eat after it eats what it likes first.. Like eating chocolate cake or peas ???? But or Not to worry it will work the rocks and sand to find its food. Only thing with keeping them is damage to corals

Well at the moment i don't have any corals so on that regard im safe.
I do have a blue sponge but thats been in the tank since xmas eve and he hasn't taken the slightest bit of interest in that.

A funny thing, i was looking at one of my hermits shells this afternoon and its got very distinct bite marks from the urchin on it! And of course they are somewhat less purple than they were

[BayBud]

Originally Posted by totter0817

My LFS sold me a supplement to speed up coralline algae growth. It is called Purple Up. I use it about once a week sometimes less than that. I used it in my nano just a few times and within a month everything was purple in my tank includind my sand. Just be careful because it can be easily overused.

Thats interesting, i had read about this stuff, i might have to give it a try.

[Nemo 22]

i would say poke him in his eye lol then he wont be able to find where the coraline is at lol. purple up is pretty good i hear.

[phoenixhieghts]

I think im going to take mine back - if you have a long spined urchin like me - they grow big! and fast!