Cali Kid Corals

Feeding Urchins

I purchased a tank plus critters from Craig’s List and we’re now in the middle of transfer. I setup a small 15 hex and cycled it to hold the animals until the main tank is moved and stabilized for a week or two. We moved the critters this Wednesday and all seem to be doing well.

Here’s the question: one of the animals is a gianormous urchin. Being that the 15 hex was a new setup there is no algae for it to graze on. I cut a strip of nori, approx 3x1, and rubber banded it to a rock. The urchin found it quickly and settled down to eat. 2 hours later it’s gone. How often does the urchin need to eat like that? I would like to keep feedings like this to a min ‘cause of the small size of the tank.

-Gregory
 
What else is in the tank with it? Any rock from the previous setup? I'm sure you can do every other day just fine for a while at least. Just keep up with water changes (which will probably be needed depending on the amt of critters you have in there + amt of biological filtration).
 
every other day at min, every day is better but that can get rough
 
phishphood said:
What else is in the tank with it? Any rock from the previous setup? I'm sure you can do every other day just fine for a while at least. Just keep up with water changes (which will probably be needed depending on the amt of critters you have in there + amt of biological filtration).

3 turbos, 1 blue legged hermit, and 2 blood shrimp..... a light load. Right now there's a couple of pounds of rock and a nice 2 to3 inch sand later. I didn't feed for the 48 hours just to see if there would be any ammonia/nitrite spikes first.......everything tested fine. I have water standing by just in case it needs a quick change.....

Rock from the previous setup didn't have much on it. There was a little coralline,but most of that had been ground down by the urchin. The owner really had nothing in the tank. All the above critters were in a 70gal tall with a fuge so it was pretty devoid of algae. It was actually one of the cleanest setups I'd ever seen.

-Gregory
 
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