The Official Asylum Reef Tank Thread

[shilala]

Originally Posted by LostAbbott

That guy looks really cool. When I was on Kauai last year I saw a fish eat one of those guys.

When I was in the Keys last year it was freezing cold and I saw thousands upon thousands of urchins dead on the bottom in the shallows. They were short-spined ones, not that it matters.
I'd like to go back next year and see how stuff has recovered. Without the urchins to clean, I bet it became quite a mess for awhile, considering the tons (literally) of dead fish everywhere.
What's odd is that I never saw them before when I was snorkeling in the shallows, or at least not in any kind of numbers that they left an impression on me. The particular variety must be nocturnal, or they simply washed in from the flats is the best I can figure.