Urchins! anybody have experience with them?

Got rid of my tang because i pulled a newbie and saw it at my LFS and couldnt pass it up. bad idea.

Anyways thinking of getting something like an urchin.
Tell me about them.
What do they eat, acclimation, reef safe?

 

they eat bad stuff, true scavenger, However I have seen them hunt serpant stars for some reason (the black longspine urchins that is) pincuhion and pencil urchins are pretty safe, they dont mess with corals but they are little bull dozers with no eyes so anything lose they have a tendancy to use for camoflauge
They will eat any algae, including coraline, they also eat detrius and pretty much anything else that is bad, acclimation is the same as a shrimp

 

I think i want to get one.
I've heard they're like little bulldozers haha.

 

Yeah if its not tied down there going go pushing it around the tank.

 

I have a Tuxedo and Pincushion one and love what they do for the tank. They will sure clean your rock.

 

Thanks!

Im going to pick up a long spine or zebra urchin next time i go to the fish store.

 

I have two rock or black urchins in my seahorse tank. They have shorter spines than a longspine urchin but the spines are just a pointy. they do a great job of keeping algae down for sure. But the buldozer part it correct one of them busted up an epoxied rock formation on me a week or so ago. The amazing thing is one of the rocks weighs about lbs out of the water!

 

I've heard that there real sensitive to parm changes and need prestine water or else they won't make it, and if anything goes funky in the tank you'll see a change in them first.

 

I know that swings in salinity are bad for them, you have to take allot of time to acclimate them if your water isn't close to the water they come in.

Pristine water I don't know about though, mine sure don't live in pristine water. With what I have to feed my seahorses all the time the water in the tank is by no means pristine and mine are thriving, constantly moving and doing a great job of getting rid of the algae in the tank.

 

Do they hurt corals and nems?
I imagine the will get a poke once in a while but should get over it right?