My fish are not cooperating

**Cliff** · 01-08-2012, 01:07 PM

I have been doing a lot of reading these past few weeks about Banggai Cardinals lately. I want to find way to ensure the fry survive the next time they spawn. One of the new things that I learned is that they fry will commonly hid in the spins of a long spin sea urchin. As I do not want a real live urchin in my tank, I decided to make a fake one. From what I had read, others have done this with great success. I used reef putty and plastic stir sticks to build it

Now that I noticed one of the Cardinals was holding fry, I figured I would put the urchin stunt double in the tank in the same area the cardinals like to hang out in and leave it there. It was in the tank for two days without any problems.

Seems like a good idea …… right ?

This morning when I got up and looked at the tank, I noticed at least two little fry inside the spins. So off I went to the basement to set-up a QT tank for the fry. Once the lights started to come on in the main tank, the other fish noticed the fry as well. The orange back wrasse kept swimming at the home made urchin trying his best to get a free meal proceeding to scratch up a few scales in the process. The hippo tang also managed to do the same thing.

Can’t find the fry anywhere now. Don’t know if they wrasse or tang got them, but there’s no fry in the home made urchin now and the wrasse and tang are staying really close to it. I feel like the only thing I achieved was to make an automatic fish feeder

Back to the drawing board

**Aeonflame** · 01-08-2012, 01:16 PM

That was a great idea. Im sorry it didnt work out. Maybe the sea urchin spines being sharp have a lot do do with it? Then again I'm not sure you want sharp objects in your tank. What if you made it denser?

**Lady Hobbs** · 01-08-2012, 01:21 PM

Those look like swivel sticks. So, how many hang-overs did it take to make that?

**gm72** · 01-08-2012, 01:26 PM

I'm sorry that didn't work, I agree that making it more dense might help.

**Cliff** · 01-08-2012, 01:28 PM

You got that right Aeon. The last thing that I want is a spinny urchin poking / stressing out the corals as it would move along going about his business

I just might try that idea GM72. I think I might try it again with a more dense version. I don't think these fish are going to stop spawning anytime soon

Originally Posted by Lady Hobbs

Those look like swivel sticks. So, how many hang-overs did it take to make that?

Oh Lady Hobbs

**sheamurai** · 01-08-2012, 02:03 PM

I think if you just altered the stunt double a bit...denser like said above but also with an inner set of shorter lengths maybe? Different material maybe too - the plastic was likely wiggle-able, allowing the fish to squeeze in there. The spines on urchins are not flexible at all.

In any case, I have a spiny urchin in my tank, have had for over a year, and it doesn't bother anything. All it does is ooze along the back wall eating my coralline. I very rarely see it above the live rock, never on the live rock and never anywhere near my corals. Its a cool little creature and I enjoy having it in my tank. The spines on mine aren't that long tho, under 2".

Seeing as thats where my urchin hangs out, maybe if you stashed the fake urchin in amongst the live rock/back corner glass to restrict fishy access, it might work out better?

**Cliff** · 01-08-2012, 02:07 PM

That's a good point Sheamurai

I'm going to look into that

**Hpimichael02** · 01-08-2012, 04:22 PM

That's a great idea, the long plastic drink stirs might work as they are stiff

**hockeyhead019** · 01-09-2012, 03:24 PM

Cliff this would take a little more time to make but what if you made a cage like structure for them? Like keep the design of the urchin look-alike but then join the top spike, it's kinda tough to explain in words but it would make it so that the fish really couldn't get into the thing... i'll try and edit your photo to show you what I'm talking about lol

**hockeyhead019** · 01-11-2012, 02:08 PM

Ok here's what I was talking about... I didn't edit your pic since it looked like crap haha but I figured you can use ur imagination to combine the pic I post and how it would apply to ur urchin clone haha

This would give it a little more structural strength so that the fish wouldn't be able to wriggle in and get the fry, also it would help with them scratching themselves since they wouldn't be swimming into the protruding ends but instead they'd swim into the blunt cross bar between the ends... just a though, idk how smart the cardinal is and whether or not he'd call BS on the now fortress looking look-alike urchin haha