Overview

The Pincushion Urchin is an interesting and useful reef tank inhabitant. They come in a variety of colours, and they are reef-safe and coral friendly. They will scavenge your tank eating algae and uneaten food.

Care: Easy
Diet: Herbivore / Omnivore
Size: 1″ to 8″
Temperament: Peaceful
Population: 1G to 30G
Colours: White / Red / Purple / Blue

Behaviour

Typically known as nocturnal, a Pincushion Urchin will often be found hiding out of site during the daylight hours. But at night, that is when you will see it come out and start its grazing. It will work it’s way around a reef tank looking for food. It is quite strong, however, and can push smaller rocks or corals out of it’s way. It is known as solitary, but is generally peaceful and will tolerate others of its own kind.

Food

These types of urchins love algae. If you have been troubled by green hair algae, then you will be amazed by how much they will eat. While there is plenty of algae in your tank, then the Pincushion Urchin will be happy. Once that food source runs out though, it will happily munch on Coraline Algae. If you don’t want it to graze on that(or if you don’t have any), then you can supplement it’s diet with a dried seaweed product.

Care

Pincushion Urchins are fairly hardy when it comes to water parameters and like most reef tank inhabitants, they just require stability. A temperature between 73 -78F with a PH of between 8.1 -8.4 should be fine. Specific gravity should ideally be between 1.023 and 1.025. The most important aspect of caring for this urchin is ensuring it has enough food. Typically, a sick urchin will discolour or lose it’s spines. This can be for a number of reasons such as incorrect water parameters, stress, illness, parasites.