Sea Urchin

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Echinothrix diadema

The Black Sea Urchin is supposed to eat nuisance algae, but all this one seems to do is eat coralline! I originally "loaned" him from my local fish store when the tank was going through its new tank algae syndrome. He never seemed interested in the hair algae at all, but prefers to spend his time speeding around the glass eating coralline. I've never been able to get him back out of the tank, as he always seems to be just out of reach. I guess I've resigned myself to keeping him. He is pretty cool to watch! Since my tank has an overabundance of coralline algae, he can't really put a dent in it - however, if you have problems getting coralline to spread in your tank, you might want to think twice about adding one of these guys!