GSP and S. Purpuratus

[rustyness]

SO i have a GSP i've fully acclimated to marine levels and have been given the opportunity of getting a free purple sea urchin for his tank. I was wondering if it would be ok to mix the two or not?

The tank doesn't yet have live rock or corals, as i'm not sure if the GSP will leave corals alone or not, but i plan on doing a trial run with that when i have money for the equipment needed to sustain corals in a tank as well.

[PolishPuff]

What is your tank size?

[rustyness]

currently in a 20 long, but the puffer is 3 inches and has been the same size since i first got him 6 months ago. i dont plan on adding corals and such for quite a while down the line; probably in the summer. this is what it currently looks like http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/4773/dsc0298y.jpg

i will be getting a bigger tank- probably around 40 gallons- that i will get up and running with live rock and a few corals. i would eventually move both to it if i can and the puffer doesnt go on a coral destroying mission

[PolishPuff]

To be honest I wouldn't experiment with it puffers eat inverts and urchin is one of them. Urchin needs at least .021 SG. If you look at the safety puffer maybe get injured by it trying to eat it.

[Pufferpunk]

Why bother having the tank at marine levels, if you're not using live rock & a skimmer? Seems like a terrible waste of $alt, as you'll still be doing 50% weekly water changes on there.

I think the puffer might try to eat the urchin, especially with the purple ones having shorter spines.

[CarmenH]

I've got corals and an urchin in with Douggie. And small hermit crabs... He ignores them. Just put in some astrea snails tonight, not sure if that'll work but they weren't terribly expensive and I figure if he gets them it'll be good for his teeth...
Don't know about GSP's though...

[rustyness]

Well I plan on fully converting his tank to marine. I am getting lights next but don't know what to get for water movement for corals. I have a penguin power wheel 150 right now for the filter. What kind of skimmer would I need to add? It is going to be quite a while before I do anything and this is just one of the few qustions I have in the process.

Eventually the puffer will be in a tankwith live rock and everything, but I don't know if I want to convert the 20 long or save up for a new bigger tank.... I kinda want to do the 20 long and if he does continue to grow - tho he hasn't in the 6
months I've had him- I would give him to a friend with a 29 gallon tank.

But I feel like the factthat I bought him in his current size in co
pletely fresh water might have led to growth problems.

It would be quite nice tho if my favorite fish by far could bridge the gap between lots
of experience with fresh tanks and my first saltwater experience.

Sorry for typos. I just have an iPod touch for the next few days lol

[busybones]

GSP's are fairly slow growers so I wouldn't really suspect any growth problems as of now...

[CarmenH]

My tank has been relatively inexpensive. I've picked up most of the 100lb+ live rock off of Kijiji and craigslist, and have sold bits and pieces of the packages it came with to make most of my money back, and also got an extra tank out of it for a friend. I got 2 Koralia 3 powerheads (on sale) for water movement. Got a coralife superskimmer (on sale) which gets mixed reviews but the price was right and it does an awesome job. I swapped the double t8 that came with the tank with a triple t8 fixture off another planted fw tank I had that does fine with lower light. Threw 1 actinic tube in. I won't be able to do difficult corals with only 3 tubes but I have a lot of polyps, mushrooms, a lg hammer coral, frogspawn, and xenias and everything (so far) is thriving. I was running a filstar 3 and a penguin double biowheel that I already had as well but am weaning them off as the live rock takes over...
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