justjosh Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 I woke up to a murder. My pencil sea urchin, whom I have had for almost three years with NO incident, has turned into a vicious predator! The awesome onyx clown you see was swimming happily eating some hearty mysis the night before. Such a bummer. This sea urchin came on my first piece of live rock three years ago and had been through a ton. He always did a good job of keeping my rocks clean. Well I guess he is going back to the lfs. What I believe happened is the clownfish tried to host the urchin or sleep in its spines at night and the urchin slowly manipulated his spines to trap the clownfish. This happened Wednesday night and today the urchin was steal chompin. I really loved the onyx clown...Sorry Nate. Link to comment
uwwmatt Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 He looks like an evil floating ball of death. Link to comment
animalmaster6 Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 Never seen a Pencil Urchin do this before. That's crazy! Sorry to hear. Link to comment
justjosh Posted February 20, 2011 Author Share Posted February 20, 2011 Yeah I was pretty bummed. But I just let nature take it's course and it took the urchin about 2 and a half days to finish his meal. Then he was banished to the sump. Link to comment
dling Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 be careful I think he looking at you with the sounds of dinner bells in his head Link to comment
maxwell Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 As the pencil urchin looks at his oblivious owner he thinks..."time to play" Link to comment
DaJMasta Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 They're omnivores, so I certainly wouldn't put it past scavanging the clown after it was dead or when it was too sick to get away. I have had fish which are officially herbivores eat mysis and meaty foods though, so I'm not sure many creatures really have that strict of a diet... Link to comment
justjosh Posted February 23, 2011 Author Share Posted February 23, 2011 They're omnivores, so I certainly wouldn't put it past scavanging the clown after it was dead or when it was too sick to get away. I have had fish which are officially herbivores eat mysis and meaty foods though, so I'm not sure many creatures really have that strict of a diet... There's no way this fish was sick as it devoured some mysis the night before it happened. Also, this tank is in my bedroom so I observe him a lot. I definitely agree with you about herbivores eating anything, it seems rare that a fish is strictly herbivorous. Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.