Trigger Fish

[JPhan1]

Between the bluejaws the male is the one with the blue marking on the jaw. I have a pinktail around 6" and has never bothered any fish coral inverts including snails and two cleaner shrimp and my clams. Had him since about 2.5"

 

[MrTuskfish]

lots of interesting trigger info on this thread. Just my 2 cents; IMO & IME, there is no trigger that is completely trustworthy with small inverts. Even a Blue Jaw. many of the "milder' triggers; like sargassums, Crosshatches, & Blue jaws MAY leave the small fish and inverts alone. But there is an equal chance they won't. They are still triggers and thats what triggers eat. Right now, I have a pair of crosshatches and a sargassum that will eat most shrimp, crabs, etc., and any fish that's small enough. before moving, I had a big male Blue jaw with the same eating habits. Not saying it won't work, it often does. But, it often doesn't too. I have a friend who had a sargassum scarf about a half dozen smaller wrasses in a weekend.

 

[nikon187]

my sargassm is trying to eat my blue flasher and red fin flasher as e speak. Both are small though..He leaves inverts alone for now ( trigger is 6-7")

 

[pudge_cat]

I kept a picasso trigger with some LPS in a 210 gallon tank. He ate my cleaner shrimp. Very messy eater, I used filter floss I changed 3x/week. I had a large tomatoe clown, a damsel, a foxface and a juvenile orange shoulder tang. He was a very well behaved specimen for the 5 years I had him by trigger standards. Not very aggressive, in fact was bullied by the clown.

I've told this story before, but he killed my tang. They both went for the same peice of food and the trigger clamped down on the tang's mouth tearing off half his jaw. I saw it happen and I swear the trigger had a contrite look on his face. Tang swam around for a week with half his mouth hanging off before he died of starvation.

I guess the point is that they are powerful fish and even well behaved ones can be destructive to tankmates, in this case by accident.

 

[Phastroh]

I was just at the LFS(one of the many) picking up my 180 pounds of Fiji Pink and I was talking to the owner because I wanted pricing on 4 Tangs I want.

I noticed in their display tank the had a large Hippo, a Large Blonde Naso and a big Yellow Tang which are 3 of the 5 Tangs I will have.

So I remembered seeing a large Trigger(8 inches) in the tank so I see it again. This tank has many Green Chromis, and they are like 3 inches and it has a large Eel and some small fish.

He said it was a crosshatch trigger and that it has been in there for 2 years. Never bothers anything.

He also recommended the Blue jaw.

 

[89Foxbody]

Like others have said, there are no guarantees. The meanest fish might be a model citizen and the nicest fish might be a monster...In any case, feel free to try the fish but prepared to remove/return it if the fit isn't right.