LOOK!

[dzekunoi]

Check this out gang!

 

Trigger

[Relad]

pretty cool looking...

[Folta]

For quicker comparison:

 

Innas:

 

Normal:

 

Pretty cool!

[davelin315]

Ummm... looks like a juvenile trigger to me, in the process of changing. Could be wrong, but they go through a ton of different patterns. The babies are awesome and the young adults are ugly, kind of like that one!

[jamesbuf]

Ugly? That was the fish that orginally got me to change to saltwater back in college. Mean little sucker!! I wonder if his pattern will change as he grows? Definitly cool looking.

[davelin315]

Only the changing pattern... I think that the babies and adults look awesome - just ugly when they're in the middle of the change like that and all mottled and faded looking. Clown triggers have always been a favorite.

[dzekunoi]

The one on saltwaterfish.com is 3-4" big - is it changing?

[davelin315]

I can't say for sure, but size alone does not dictate the change. The way they change is that they have the spots all over their body, then they begin to migrate down towards only the bottom of their body, and then they only have the spots as adults on their abdomen. I tried to look for a picture but they only show juveniles with the spots everywhere or adults. I'll keep on looking for a picture. I have seen clown triggers that look like that before and they were simply in the changing phase. I don't know if the ones I have seen are rare, too, but to me, it's like selling an angel that's halfway through its change and saying it's a hybrid. Could be wrong, though. Let me see if I can find pictures to back it up.

[davelin315]

None of these links will display the picture, but here's a list of sites that have good pictures that show this is really nothing more than a changing clown trigger.

 

Here's a picture of a maturing clown trigger (actually, it says it's Steve Howard's clown trigger, wondering if that's our own Steve Howard).

http://saltaquarium.about.com/library/phot...amclowntrig.htm

 

Here's another one. You can see that the spots are still covering the whole body rather than being isolated to the lower half of the body. This is a sign of an immature trigger.

http://homepage.mac.com/wildlifeweb/fish/t...erfish01tfk.jpg

 

Here's another nice photo of an immature/changing clown trigger.

http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/imgs/512x768.../0664/0096.jpeg

 

Here's a shot of an immature/juvenile clown trigger. Notice the presence of the spots all over the body and the lack of a well defined yellow spot near the spine.

http://www.daveharasti.com/nelsonbay/fish/...onspicillum.jpg

 

So, again, this is simply my opinion, but that's an ugly changing trigger... it'll look fantastic when it's all done changing, but it's basically going through its gawky puberty stage...

[jason the filter freak]

I have no expertise on the subject but I think davlin is making a strong point

[Caribbean Jake]

Dave

Is it possible to mix or mutate these fish? and perhaps this is a result of such?

[davelin315]

Mixing them is way past my area of expertise as I know absolutely nothing about their reproduction other than they lay eggs. My layman's opinion is simply that this is a trigger going through its change. My guess is that someone will drop the $299 on this guy and after a couple of months in a healthy environment will wonder where their ugly trigger went and see that they really simply bought a clown trigger for 8x the price!