Reef Triggers?

[Bob]

I saw a beautiful pink tailed Trigger today...... no information in any of my fish books. I think the Trigger is a great looking fish, but understand many are not reef safe. Anybody have any suggestions for reef safe and friendly Triggers. I am dealing with a 150 gal understocked tank so...... slightly bigger would be ok. Thanks for any info.

[yagerboy]

Others may be of more help, but my experience has been that most triggers are ok with most softies and some lps, but will constantly chew and sps and most hard corals. Yhe other thing is (other than spiny urchins) you can forget about having any snails, shrinp, crabs, etc for a cleanup crew.

Good Luck! Pink Tails are pretty fish.

[Brian Ward]

Bob,

 

Take a look here:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-08/dc/index.php

 

No trigger is considered absolutely reef safe. That article gives some good info.

 

~Brian

[jamal]

well as someone who has kept 2 triggers in a reef tank with snails and crabs and a lobster i will say that there are reef safe triggers though when you watch them eat you can see why keeping them fed is important. reef safe is relative however so if you want a trigger be prepared to restock your cleaning crew a little more often. i have been lucky but you may not be. reef safe triggers are: pink tail trigger, blue throat trigger. somewhat less reef safe but maybe worth a try: crosshatch triggers, niger trigger. good luck

[dschflier]

I have a 210 gallon 3 of the fish I have many people have said are not reef safe. I have a emperor angel just going through the adult change and I have a good size yuma yuma trigger and a good size niger trigger. I have had these three fish each about 3 years.

 

I have had no problems with them touching any of my corals. My tank has SPS, softies, schrooms and most other things you can think of. As mentioned by yagerboy I cant put any shrimp in the tank unless I am doing it for the triggers dinner. They have not taken an intrest in my crabs or snails and I have a lot of them.

 

That being said, I got the triggers from my father when he was going to floridia for the winter and couldn't take care of them. I am considering selling just the Huma Huma. Not because it has eaten any corals but because it has limited what else I can put in the tank now. I happen to love my triggers but I think if I were to do it again I would either get triggers that are more mellow, like the cross hatch or blue line. I would still consider the niger as well.

 

Even though I have had luck with mine I think some of it is how much you feed them and it also may be that I am just lucky with mine.

[fab]

Trigger fish are very risky, therefore, hard for me to justify in a reef tank. I nature many of their varieties spend a lot of time picking at the reef, destructively. They are reef consumers and are usually aggressive. They get quite big, easily a foot long, and are voracious eaters. You better do a lot of research on specific varieties of trigger fish before you decide to get one.

 

You'll have to provide them with large crevices for hidey holes. They like to hide their heads in holes or crevices in the rock structure and lock themselves in with their fins when they get upset. Mechanically, this is not a gentle action. In nature this is not a problem as the reef structure is very solid. In a reef tank I would expect this behavior could easily bring stacked rocks crashing down.

 

Many times as I have been swimming along a reef at about 20 meters depth, I would see a dozens of trigger fish in a small area, each with about 2/3 of its body stuck in crevice but with its tail sticking out. Usually the crevices are horizontal, so the fish would look like it was on its side. Something nasty must have just gone through the area and they were still hiding from it. Eventually they would let go and back out of the holes. I've seen them in the holes for 10-15 minutes at a time.

 

I guess they could be considered the ostriches of the sea.

 

I think that in a large fish-only tank they might work out, but even that is doubtful to me for many varieites, given their adult size. I believe this would have to be considered on the basis of which specific type of trigger fish you end up wanting to have.

 

fab

[jamal]

also they are very active so this needs to be considered. i would recommend the blue throat for his disposition and his adult size. he is a planktivore and reaches about 9 inches full grown in stark contrast alot of these triggers can be 18-20 in full grown so keep that in mind

[msn711]

Right now I'm trying a niger in my 120. According to my research, they are not coral eaters in nature. To me, that makes them reef safe. Mine is pretty small right now, and in time may turn on my CUC and inverts, but I couldn't find anything to suggest I should worry about my corals. I saw some reports of them knocking frags and stuff over, but my GSM already does that. From my research, your best bets are the niger, pink tail, blue throat, and cross hatch.

[jamesbuf]

I had great success with a blue jaw pair back in my 180gallon. They both ate nori and I never caught them eating any snails or hermits. For some reason, both just mysteriously died on me. The female died one day and the male died about a week later. They didn't have any ich spots, open sores, or anything else growing on them. I would have gotten another pair if I hadn't downgraded tanks.