lethargic urchin

My urchin who is usually maneuvering all over the tank, has not been moving much and today, he was upside down and I went to take him out but his needles were still moving and his mouth. Any ideas on anything I can do? He's on the sand bed now. I feed my fish about 3 times daily so there should be food as well as plenty of coralline that he seems to like.

Oh, one more thing, he has shed quite a few needles over the past month or so.

 

Well unfortunately none of that sounds very good. What type of urchin do you have? Have you ever offered the urchin sheets of nori or other marine algae?

Urchins are pretty sensitive to swings in parameters have you checked just the basics like pH, specific gravity....

Lastly these little buggers come with tons of parasites sometimes.

 

FYI if he does die they will nuke a tank IME killed a ton of snails and hermites

 

oh dear, now what to do. I'm going to place it on a small sheet of nori and see if it perks up. It has moved slightly since last night. How does one tell when it's dead? Should I just remove it to be on the safe side?

Salinity is 1.026. I don't typically test ph. I know that's bad

 

Mine did this not to long ago just all of a sudden stooped moving left him there for about a week before he finally died. No water issues that I could detect, just watch him and look for the spines to move/react that generally how you can tell