# Red Tuxedo Urchin! New Pics!



## Puff (Feb 14, 2005)

i got this guy yesterday. ive always wanted an urchin...my gf loves the spiny ones, but i like the tuxedo ones. well...i was at the LFS and they had a couple of pretty small red tuxedo urchins. i placed the two smallest ones next to eachother and picked the one with the best colour. they are so friggin cool. i never realized that they have a bunch of little sucker tentacles.

i know that they will eventually eat coraline as their food runs out, but im going to try to keep im fed with different things and see what it likes.

here's some pics!









Mouth open, eating algae









Mouth closed, eating...









urchin reaching for some algae with the tentacles

















ricordea shot









green tonga shroom shot


----------



## pirayaman (Nov 3, 2007)

thats so awesome i could stare at that tux forever


----------



## nismo driver (Jan 27, 2004)

dude that thing is cool as hell..

your shrooms are looking very nice too!


----------



## Chapz (Jul 9, 2007)

I would hate to be the algea that gets sucks into that mouth. 
Awesome shots and new additions.


----------



## Puff (Feb 14, 2005)

this urchin is hilarious.

tuxedo urchins are known for picking up bits and pieces in the tank as a "costume". well...this guy is no exception. within 10 minutes of being in the tank he was cruising around with two types of zoas on him. along with some hermit shells.lol

when im bored i decorate him. i smashed up a couple of snail shells because he seems to prefer the shell shards, then i hand them to him one by one and he either puts them where he wants, or drops them. it's funny as hell.


----------



## Grosse Gurke (Jan 3, 2003)

Hey Puff....would one of these work in my small tank?


----------



## notaverage (Sep 10, 2005)

Puff said:


> this urchin is hilarious.
> 
> tuxedo urchins are known for picking up bits and pieces in the tank as a "costume". well...this guy is no exception. within 10 minutes of being in the tank he was cruising around with two types of zoas on him. along with some hermit shells.lol
> 
> when im bored i decorate him. i smashed up a couple of snail shells because he seems to prefer the shell shards, then i hand them to him one by one and he either puts them where he wants, or drops them. it's funny as hell.


Definately need videos of that...that sounds like it would be cool to watch!


----------



## Puff (Feb 14, 2005)

Grosse Gurke said:


> Hey Puff....would one of these work in my small tank?


i would say so GG. the tuxedos only get to about 3" across, and they dont have those long spines so they arent AS destructive. the first few days i had him i spent re-placing objects in my tank. he's good at picking things up, and i kept finding my zoas spread all over the tank, so i had to anchor them down. now my tank is "urchin-proof" and he ignores my corals.

GG- one thing to keep in mind is that they WILL eat coraline...if the other types of algae run out. that said, it takes them quite a while to get to work on the coraline, and by then your tank will probably be producing plenty of it. in the last week ive noticed purple coraline growing up my back wall!

he has also changed his costume...now he's wearing:

-some purple macro algae
-a bit of chaeto
-some hair algae
-a cerith snail (yes...it's still alive. but i picked it off his back, as it isnt fair to the snail, as it had no way of getting out of the piggyback.lol)
-some broken pieces of snail shell

he also had a nassirus snail on him for a bit, but i picked it off of him.

ill get some more pics of him soon, the last few days he has been hanging out at the back of the tank and it's hard to get good shots of him back there, working through the bowfront glass, swirling current (if pumps are off there are still bits in the water), and my gramma and clownfish who like to try to get in the middle of every picture i take.


----------



## Grosse Gurke (Jan 3, 2003)

Thanks for the info Puff...I might just look into one of these guys.

With the way he decorates himself...I will be disappointed if I dont see him wearing a tiny plastic tophat in at least one of those pictures...now that would be sweet


----------



## Puff (Feb 14, 2005)

well he kind of had a Wizard hat going for a couple of days.lol

i had smashed up a trochus shell so he could use the pieces. i handed him the top "cone" piece of the shell, and he cruised around with it set at a jaunty angle for a while, then dropped it.lol


----------



## Puff (Feb 14, 2005)

this morning when i looked at my tank i noticed that the urchin (still havent named it yet) was in a particularly "dressy" mood. not the most, but a decent amount. so i took a couple of pics. unfortunately he was at the back of the tank, so it was very hard to get any in focus shots through the current, clownfish, gramma, and other intrusions.lol

the dress du jour seems to be: a large snail shell, green hair algae, assorted shell pieces, and on the far side i think it was still carrying some purple macro algae.lol


----------



## notaverage (Sep 10, 2005)

Cool...I love this! 
Keep s updated.


----------

