Heart Urchin

Care Summary

The Heart Urchin is a sand-dwelling echinoderm named for its distinctive heart-shaped test, and it spends virtually its entire life burrowed beneath the sandbed filtering organic matter from the substrate. It is a genuine reef-safe addition that actively improves sandbed health by aerating and turning over the sand, making it a functional and interesting cleanup crew choice for tanks with a deep sand bed. Because it lives almost entirely out of sight beneath the sand, it is easy to forget about. But it still needs stable water quality and a sandbed deep enough to fully submerge itself, typically three or more inches. Supplement its diet by target-feeding fine particulate foods or powdered invertebrate foods into the sand in its general area when natural detritus is low.