High Tide Aquatics

Urchin Breeding

One of the things that have been on my list of to-dos is breeding urchins. Finally got around to it.

Unfortunately, I moved my bright pink male pincushion to my work tank whereby it succumbed for some unexplainable reason. :/

So had to work with a lighter pinkish white male and a purple with white base female.

I wasn't sure which orientation I had before I began...only way to sex an urchin is to go through the process of extracting the good stuff from them.

As luck would have it, i picked a male and female on the first try.

Often an injection of KCl solution is used to induce the spawning. But some species will respond to being shaken (cue music) "...like a pololaroid picture"

Once the urchins start releasing, i placed them upside down in a container of seawater (container credit goes to @ashburn2k) one at a time.

I started with the male first by coincidence since that's what i realized I had with the first urchin I picked. Then my second random pick was the female.

I forgot to take a picture of the male doing its thing but here is a pic of the female releasing eggs into a prepared love potion.

You can see the eggs collecting at the bottom indicated by the yellowish orange coloration. As well as some of the eggs still being spawned.

After a few minutes of contact time after collection, i gave the container a few shakes to thoroughly mix the sperm and eggs, capped it, and let it sit in the tank to temperature acclimate before releasing the contents.

Likely, i will put a small amount into one of my nanos as a backup hatchery.

So, if I am successful, there might be some free pincushions available for supporting members... :)
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That’s pretty cool. What’s the process like getting them to a point where they don’t just get eaten?
LOL -- not sure yet... will be a learning process.

For this first attempt, I lowered the capped container into my drain area of the sump where my chaeto and macro live and uncapped it thereafter. the thought originally was maybe some of the fertilized eggs might stay at the bottom of the container while those that float off would get captured inside or on the chaeto clump. My DT has no sock but a bit of submerged foam right before the return pump. So hoping that most of the eggs stay in the sump and those that make it passed would wind up simply floating around my DT, assuming the foam doesn't capture some and dry out...

Hatching is suppose to happen within 24 hours... but juvenile stages may take 2 - 3 weeks.
 
did you get consent from mr and ms urchin before conducting this experiment?

Someone I know has successfully bred cleaner shrimp and snails from eggs. Urchins should be possible too! Goodluck!


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Where did you get your information on raising urchins? They have a free-swimming stage that I would imagine is similar or more demanding than raising clownfish fry. My emerald crabs spawned quite a bit but the free larvae got eaten or filtered out (thank goodness - can you imagine a tank crawling with tiny emerald crabs)
 
Where did you get your information on raising urchins? They have a free-swimming stage that I would imagine is similar or more demanding than raising clownfish fry. My emerald crabs spawned quite a bit but the free larvae got eaten or filtered out (thank goodness - can you imagine a tank crawling with tiny emerald crabs)
Trying not to!
 
Finally got back from vacation and catching up on my reefing! ...though swimming with the fish wasn't bad! :D

@Chromis -- I pieced together my info from some research papers and lab instructions I found... Since I don't us filter sock and/or media, I am gambling that my DT system would be supportive of urchins in their free swimming stages. I believe it takes about 3 weeks for urchin hatchlings to reach a stage where it resembles mini versions of adults. so, maybe another week to go to very the results. I released the fertilized eggs in the drain area of my sump where I keep my chaeto in hopes that maybe the net of chaeto would keep some of the eggs there.

As for food, I am depending on the high nutrient and planktonic life in my tank as is... versus extra feedings. My system supports non-photosynthetic species like flame scallops, etc. without any feedings so gambling on this to help hold up any of the urchins that might hatch.

Only I would change for next time is to use KCl injections versus shaking to extract the raw materials. Shaking may result in urchin death, at least for mine.
 
My system supports non-photosynthetic species like flame scallops, etc. without any feedings so gambling on this to help hold up any of the urchins that might hatch..
So are you saying you’re going to be feeding the Flame scallops a little more :)? I would think a setup like fish breeders use, with air-driven filtration to avoid damaging the fry (and no filter feeders!), would be best - maybe Kimmie has some ideas.
 
@NanoCrazed is it possible to breed your urchins in a separate tank with sponge filters (and no predators)? Do the larvae just eat phyto? What I learned from my green water issue is that it’s easy to keep a dense culture of phytoplankton going by dosing N & P.
Yeah, that would be the next attempt... for the first one, I was hoping for a naturalesque approach... plus, forgot i was leaving town so went that route and hope the system would support

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