Keeping Sea Urchins In Aquarium

Keeping Sea Urchins In Aquarium

I used to keep sea urchins in aquariums. If you have never seen a sea urchin, they are like a ball of sharp needles. And I had several of them in a tank. I would go over to the tank and put my hand in, and the urchins would go into their spiny ball shape, and it would be like sticking my hand into a porcupine.

I kept them for about six months, until one day I was cleaning out the tank with my hand in it, and one of them attached itself to my finger by its tube feet. They are normally very hard to pull off; they attach themselves to rocks and ocean floor using hundreds of tiny suction cups at the bottom of their feet. You can't just peel them off; you have to pry them off with something flat and hard.

I had nothing flat and hard nearby, so I just pulled my hand out of the tank as fast as possible which worked fine except that half the urchin came off in my hand and half stayed on my finger where it continued to cling by its tube feet.

This is where things got interesting. The part still attached to the rock was trying to pull back toward it with all its tube feet while the

I was briefly excited, but then I realized: of course they're making money. They got to the top of the search results because they're experts, and they're selling stuff related to their expertise. If you've kept sea urchins, it's not hard to imagine that you might have some other knowledge people would pay for. So this is the sort of thing there ought to be a market for.