Pencil Urchin in Seahorse tank

[alanbetiger]

I have a 29 biocube turned into a seahorse tank. Since I've been over feeding the seahorses I started developing quite a bit of hair algae. I thought no problem I'll put a Pencil Urchin in there to help control it and didn't think it would be able to harm the seahorses with the thick dull spines. One seahorse mysteriously died and was being carried around by the urchin. Didn't think anything of it. 4 days later I found a 4 inch seahorse flailing around with it's head being squeezed by the thick spines. I picked up the urchin and seahorse and could feel the urchin seriously squeezing harder on the seahorse's head. I finally had to break the spines to set it free. I was really surprised.

 

[Grant]

Wow, I wouldn't have expected the urchin to bother the seahorses either. Did the horses maybe try to use the spines as a hitching post and the urchin felt like it was defending itself? Of course that's a wild guess with no actual experience or research to back it up.

Maybe a tuxedo urchin would work instead?

 

[alanbetiger]

I did previously have an 1 inch Blue Tuxedo urchin in there and another seahorse got an ulcer on it's tail after trying to grab a hold of it.
I didn't see it but I suspect the seahorse grabbed a hold of pencil urchin and it started squeezing on it's tail so tried to push off with it's head to buck off when it got grabbed. I can't imagine I have had the one predatory urchin out there trying to eat seahorse heads.
I have a Dwarf Nudibranch in there and going to grab a few more to help out.

 

[Tabi1720]

Find a tiny Naso tang and it'll clean the hair algae from your tank in no time. Then when it gets too big sell it to belovely76137. She's been wanting one but the big ones are too expensive and she has a big Regal so she's afraid to put a baby one in her tank. ;-)

 

[Grant]

@alanbetiger wrote:

Wow, I wouldn't have expected it to try to grab the tuxedo urchin since there's nothing really there to grab hold of. I could see the urchin come by and try to grab the seahorse to use as "camouflage", though. Mine is currently wandering around with a bunch of paly's on it. [smilie=smile.gif]