Uh oh urchin and new pom pom crabs

When I bought those red nps polyps on day 3-4 I noticed the worlds tiniest urchin on it. So small you couldn't even get a picture. Haven't seen it for over a month and figured it died or whatever. Then the other night I stayed up pretty late, went over and flipped the light on and find this!


It is an amazing amount larger in a disturbingly short amount of time. I could take this terrible pic when before my camera wouldn't even focus on it. Looks like a regular pencil urchin now and seems to be eating coraline and really hates the light I guess. I think he will be moving to my 24 gallon before too long and then somebody better want an urchin if he gets huge.

I also bought myself a pair of these for my nps tank, they are so cute

They are cute. I need to move mine to my NPS tank. I don't see it often enough in my 75. I had two at first and they went at each other. I was afraid they were going to fight to the death.

Pencil urchins sometimes find corals tasty right? Watch that little bugger.

I honestly don't know what they eat but he seems to always be on the rockwork and during his missing time nothing has seemed eaten or stressed. There's not much coral in there so if he started making trouble it should be obvious.

I thought pencil urchins were okay with corals, except for their bull-dozing capabilities.

Hazelton Dental had one that went to town on their softies if I'm not mistaken.

I did a little looking, sounds like yeah softies can be a risk and some will eat anything but some are fine. We'll see I suppose. At some point he's going to need a larger setup than I can offer.

He's cute right now.

I agree with Cammie. Judy from Hazelton's said theirs made a swath across their
corals. He was so bad, I heard he ended trying to get out of plastic bag, in the back,
in the trash, in the dark, learning a lesson, ... he failed.

Only issue I had with my pencil urchin was many corals were not glued down and it liked to knock them over. After damaging a few corals and frags he was given to the pet store to find a new home. It never ate corals, just knocked them over.

So Mr. Urchin just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I rearranged the tank the other day and decided to plop him in the 24 gallon instead. Still no long term plans, anyone want an urchin?

We had one tuxedo urchin a long time ago and same thing, he grew FAST. We took him back to the pet store cuz he was bulldozing stuff. Shame too, he was super interesting to watch.