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Urchin blowing something off!


wasp

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Well Markoshark came over today to kindly sort something on my computer, and afterwards we were looking at the tank when all of a sudden the urchin started blowing off this white milky stuff, coming in powerful jets from 4 holes in its back. But not the anal sack.

Ended up making the whole tank a murky white.

I think it might have been spawning anyone know about this stuff? I've seen it pass excrement before but it's usually little pellet type things, nothing like this!

urchinexpelling.jpg

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For some reason that reminds me of that episode of Wildboys, or was it Jackass, when Steve-O and Chris Pontius (Partyboy) go diving for sea cucumbers.... (If you haven't seen it, then it might not make much sense)

Maybe the urchin has a thing for Marko? heheh

BTW, I thought urchins ate Corals? Or are they normally fine and there are just some naughty ones?

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This one doesn't eat coral although it does have a very occasional nibble. It mostly eats algae and when that's a bit thin it eats coraline algae, then coral if it's really hungry. I used to have another similar looking one but slightly different that only ate coraline, but the 2 urchins combined needed more food than my tank could provide. Once it got through all the coraline it started eating coral big time so i gave it away. (The coraline eating one that is).

The white stuff coming out came out in spurts, at first thread like but then dispursed into the water, here is (i think) a better pic.

urchinexcreting2.jpg

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Is that yellow(green?) stag on the lhs the one from my tank??

Yes it is and it's a BEAUTY! :D

Not sure how well you recall but it was not direct from your tank, you gave a very large frag to Craig (Paremoremo) which had several branches. He broke a branch off and gave it to me, as soon as it went in my tank it started sending out multiple branches, what an awesome coral!! :D

It is quite a brittle coral though and due to my tendency to fiddle :x has been broken and knocked around a few times but has still turned into a really nice piece. Not growing out the top of the water like yours yet but i'm sure will eventually happen.

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Hey Wasp, spawning would be my guess, seems to be the time.

Yes I suspect you are right, the other thing is that it climbed up a coral to do this, when I saw it I wondered why it had gone up there. Then this happened i think it may have climbed up to get good dispersal. Pity I don't have a male & female of them wouldn't it be cool to have lots of little babies coming on!

And now I think about it, many years ago in my home town of Gisborne we would dive for kinas to eat, and the milky stuff that sometimes came out of the row looked just like the stuff it ejected.

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Argh, remember now, thought you may have got a bit when you visited. Did you get any of the sky blue stag, would be interested to know how it coloured up in your tank - seems to really need bright bright light to maintain the blue.

I've got a blue tuxedo urchin, and they're great to watch. He eats off the rock, and eats whatever is under him, green algae, coraline etc, but has no interest in corals. My coraline has just started to really take off in the new tank, so his clean white paths are covered pretty quickly at present. And he produces pretty white sand out of the other end 8) , but I siphon that out quickly - imagine, sand in a reef tank :D

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imagine, sand in a reef tank :D

Ha Ha! Yes that is what mine normally makes, sandy looking stuff.

No I didn't get the blue one, maybe one day!

That browny looking coral in the pic to the urchins immediate right can go blue, but conditions have to be absolutely perfect, it's a hard one. As with most blue ones I guess.

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