Triggers In A Reef

I

Ivan

I've been reading on some of the featured tanks in Reef Central and was surprised to see one or more triggers in the featured reef tank. Do you have one? What type? How long has it been in there?
 
I have a pair of blue throats in my 450 for almost a year now. Perfect citizens. I have shrimp, tiny neon gobies, and snails with no issues.
 
I have a Sargassum Trigger in my tank now. So far, so good. I've read that they are "reef safe" from different sources as well. He's only been in for a little over a week, and he hasn't touched any corals, shrooms, Xenia, etc.

Another thing to consider is the heavy bio load of a trigger. They eat and crap a lot. I hadn't had a trigger in a few years and forgot how much they eat compared to tangs and other "reef" fish.
 
Triggers have different degrees of aggressiveness. The best ones for a reef are blue throat, crosshatch, and sargassum. We have a sargassum and a crosshatch. We have had the crosshatch at least 5 years and the sargassum about 3 years.

My crosshatch would nip the inverts at first, like the long spine urchins and cleaner shrimp. She leaves them alone now. My sargassum doesn't look twice at inverts but sometimes likes to nip the tails of long skinny fish, like my tilefish. Neither of them mess with corals.
 
A friend of mine is considering a pinktail trigger for her reef, does anyone have any experience with them? They are listed as reefsafe in Scott Michaels Marine Fishes.

She has a 125.
 
those are also more open water type triggers... notice how their jaw is more upward facing... thus open water feeders compared to other triggers.
 
I had a male and female bluethrost in my reef before moving the tank. I moved them both to the folr tank. They did not bother anything or other fish at all. Very interesting fish. They are food hogs though. :lol:
 
I have had good luck with the pink tail, blue throat, crosshatch, and sargassum
I had a pair of crosshatch for almost 5 years and got too big for my 130gal. I ended up selling them.
The pink tail and blue throat became dinner for my blue carpet :sad:
They were both about 5 inches.
I sold the carpet the following week.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top