New Tuxedo(urchin)

A visit to the LFS ended with a new tuxedo.
I was assured by the owner and another customer, (who also bought one to add to the ones he already has), that they love hair algea and won,t bother corals. I trust the owner,s word so I bought it.

Just wanted to know if anyone here has one and do you like it.

Thanks

 

I have a blue tuxedo urchin (Mespilia globulus) and i love it! it ate all my ugly brown slimy/hairy and has not touched my coraline/corals. As a bonus, it is diurnal, so i see it alot. I have had it for about 4 months and it has grown alot. IME totally reef safe

 

brow/hariy *algae*

 

would those be ok with damsels?

 

Urchins will rid nuisance as well as beneficial algae, most importantly coralline algae! Also, most are cumbersome and will knock over corals and rock work possibly causing a myriad of problems. The best urchin in my opinion is the Black Diadema(Long-Spined) urchin!

 

I have two in my damsel tank, and they are just fine, mine likes to have a place to hide though during the day, so make sure they have a rock or something to hide in or if you have a sand bottom they will burrow in that!

 

I have one as well, other than the one rock he cleaned all the coraline off I love him!

 

Amen to that, mine knocked over my blue sponge today :O i'de just about found it a place where it was happy.
Still gotta love them little spiky dudes

 

mine has now collected pieces of shells and bottom stuff to camoflauge (i cant spell) himself, looks funny

 

Yeah they will eat coralline but while eating it they also help it spread. They will pickup anything light enough to stick to themselves as well for camo so that can be a pain, but also pretty nice to have traveling zoos, ricordea polyps and other things. They're also nice that they don't get too huge. Long spine urchins grow extremely large. I just had to remove one from a customers 75 gallon and it took up the entire bottom, side to side of a 5 gallon bucket. It was a painful venture. Good for breeding banggai cardinals though.