[sff1334]

I'm starting to get a few tufts of bryopsis (I think) algae and am cosidering getting a couple of colored sea urchins. I've got a well established 140 g with a 70 g sump, deep sand bed in sump. Is this a bad idea, anything I should watch for or be aware of. Is there a better way to address my algae problem?
thanks Rob

[Penguin]

Haven't kept them myself, but urchins will supposedly eat your coralline algae. I don't know whether they will eat bryopsis.

[organicreefer]

if you have just a small amount of bryopsis i would reccomend you start trying to eradicate it immediately.
predators arent gonna do it for you either,youre gonna have to do it youreself.
a few tufts can over run an aquarium in a relatively short time,pulling it out just seems to make it come back worse.......
i just finished off the last of my bryopsis.
i think that adding a refugium with macros helped,it seemed to not come back as fast after i pulled it .

but what i really did to eliminate it is ,i got rid of alot of the small rocks that were covered,and on two large rocks that i wanted to keep,i pulled it off and "blasted" the area where it was growing with boiling water from a large syringe...no more bryopsis..i think i killed the "roots" dance of joy, and all that.
since you have "a few tufts" i would do the boiling water thing now,pull it out and blast the area of rock where it was and a little around it,i wish i would have done it when it first showed up in my tank,i battled it for damn near a year..........
i dont know for sure that it will work,i did add a refugium and up the water changes to help a little too,but i think its definitely worth a shot .hth

[the_blue_tuna]

Urchins have been known to be bulldozers and can be toxic to your tank if they die. With that said I still think they are cool and have thought about getting one myself.

[Ltspd]

I have had lots of urchins in my tank. I got dozens of baby ones on Fla LR. They are cool, but as they grow they do become bulldozers on stuff not stuck down. They were he!! on my frags. I have since moved the few I have left to the sump. I gave most away to the LFS's

[ravenmore]

fwiw - don't think urchins are toxic when they die (any more so than another animal of equivilent size dying in the tank). They are bulldozers and eat coraline algae. Neat animals though. If you have true bryopsis, they won't touch it though.