In defense of urchins..

[Alchemist]

Hi all...I didn't want to threadcrap on one of the classified ads but I did want to post a little defense of these spiny guys and also ask some questions.

One of my favourite tank inhabitants is my tuxedo urchin...mainly because he has character.  He seems to be wearing different parts of my tank as clothing most days.  For about 3 weeks he had a zoo fragment on him which he seemed to actually rotate so that it got light all the time...yesterday he was wearing my veggie clip.  I've managed to keep him away from some things by putting frags in places he can't get to...but there's not many of those.

How do you go about urchinproofing your tank?  Do I need to epoxy frags and rocks in place?

Here's a pic of his favourite zoo hat!

[groan]

i know nothing about these things bt that pic is great!!!

[Severum]

That pic should go for photo of the month!

[kennyman]

I have epoxied my stuff. I figured I might as well since I really don't need to be in there moving stuff about all the time anyway. If I want to work on the piece to take frags off it I can lift the whole rock its on out into a pail and work on it there.

I keep the few frags I have made on the sandbed and the urchin never bothers with much there so it all seems to be working ok. I have a banded urchin and he is getting very big! Like softball size and in my little tank he tours end for end every day munching up excess Coraline.

[Shrimpy]

That is a great pic.  I vote too for pic of the month! 

[jimskoi]

I vote too for pic of the month!

[Alchemist]

I didn't get pics this time but so far this week alone my urchin has wandered around the tank with:

1. A large plastic veggie clip attached to it (trailing an algae sheet...looked like some kind of spiny green caped superhero)

2. A star polyp frag (that was completely happy and open) attached to it (after I took the veggie clip off him)

He also moved some rocks around that obviously didn't satisfy the Urchin Book of Feng Shui.

I think I'm just going to Michaels to get him his own bag of shells to wear so he leaves everything else alone.

[PaleoFishGirl]

LOL we demand photos!! This guy is hilarious!

[Alchemist]

I'm going to get a little canada flag and see if he'll wander around with that...