Diet for sand dollar/5 keyhole urchin
- Thread starter OpusOstreae
- Start date
since keyhole urchins are a native to florida and the gulf, ive caught them on the beach, tried to keep them alive and with a month they always disappear, im guessing they burrow under the substrate and eventually die from not eating, and dissolve? i doubt this helps you, but my personal expierence trying to keep them
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyhole_sand_dollar
that tells about their diets and what not, hope that helps
that tells about their diets and what not, hope that helps
Good link for general information, but wiki doesn't actually address their diet specifically. These animals feed off a number of algae from green algae, diatoms, encrusting algae - like corallines, and detritus matter as well. They are voracious eaters and can scrape rocks clean, and filter substrate beds in a short amount of time, so any tank that they are added to needs to be literally covered in these algae and other biological matter if they are to survive. Even then, these are not ones suitable for the long run in home aquariums, because most simply cannot support their dietary needs. There are however things that can be done to supplement their diets, such as purchasing (or cultivating in a separate tank) a number of micro and macro algae for example.
water_baby-Thanks so much for the info. The tank's fairly algae free, so I'll check into buying algae tomorrow.