Blue Purple Pin Cushion

Blue/Purple Pin Cushion Urchin    (Lytechinus variegatus) 

Hair algae machines! These are the blue / purple variety and are very rare. Urchins are very unique members of cleanup crew and virtually maintenance free. They are absolute algae monsters and will scavenger over rocks for nuisance algae and uneaten food. They don’t need any special care of feeding. They are safe to handle and non venomous. 100% reef safe and coral friendly, they won’t harm anything else in your aquarium. They are somewhat shy during the day but can be found hiding in the rock work. In our store if we have a tank suffering from nuisance algae we will often pick up and place the urchin in the spot we need help. The spines are actually soft and they are completely safe to handle.

You should not add these to a tank that is too new, you want to have some algae growing already so that they don’t starve. If it starts to drop its spines its a very bad sign , usually of starvation