Inadvertant Urchin

[Anonymous]

I came back from the lfs tonight with a load of new macro algae to add to my tank, dumped it into a bucket, mixed it half and half with tank water for about ten minutes. Then I reached into the bucket and grabbed a big red kelp on a rock, and as I'm about to put it into the tank, my fingers started stinging. There was an urchin on the kelp! Naturally, I shrieked and dropped the thing (into the tank!). The thing looked dead, it's all brown and drab, shaped like a tuxedo urchin, but not as colorful. A pincushion urchin, maybe? No digital camera, sorry.

But now I see it cruising on the glass wall of the tank!

Here's my tank info:
pH 8.3, temp 78, SG 1.024, ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates < 10 ppm
filtration and inhabitants are here:
http://www.seahorsedata.org/SeahorseTanks/MemberPage.asp?Handle=greenighs

I didn't acclimate it, not like I usually do for inverts. Does this thing have a chance of surviving? More importantly, do I want it to? I have four juvenile Hippocampus erectus along with all the other critters in there (see the URL above). I put this whole shebang together to keep those little seahorses happy, and I don't want anything to happen to them!

Is it safe? Sorry for the long post. I'm still a little freaked. And my fingers are still stinging.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I took Tux back to the lfs store today, and it's still healthy and active. My seahorses are fine, only my fingers are a little worse for the experience. It was a tuxedo urchin after all, its blue bands were very obvious under the lfs reef tank's very white MHs.

I was assured it could have lived peacefully in my tank with my horses, but I was concerened about them trying to snick any bits of mysis that might drift into the urchin's spines. Ouch!

Thanks anyway!

 

[danmhippo]

Well, urchins are a no no if you intend to cultivate macros. You will dump it back to LFS anyhow........