Trigger in sps dominated tank
 

Anybody have a trigger in an sps dominated tank? I'm thinking about adding a Niger, or Crosshatch, or pinktail trigger. I'm just worried about my clams and crabs, and also water quality. However, my display is 150 gallons but I do have over 300 gallons in water volume.....

Also, I'd like a pygmy angel of some sort, but how to "test" them before putting them in the display to see if they're nippers?

Suggestions appreciated. Thanks.

Des

Most triggers are NOT reef safe... The Blue Throat is probably to most reef safe there is, if you can call it that... You take a chance with all triggers.

I do have a male blue throat in my reef and it has been fine for me. It has been a year so far, hopefully he doesn't change.

Blue throats are not bad but the "big 3" reef safe ones are the crosshatch, sargassum, and pinktail. Clams will be fine with any of those but apparently it's hit and miss with the hermits and whatnot. But *supposedly* those big 3 are water column feeders aka planktivores. You can tell by the upturned lips that they're not really meant for picking things off the substrate.

Think Niger's are reasonably safe too, although probably come after under the blue throats if you were to rate them.

Crosshatches are the bomb if you ask me, but pricey, and realistically get too big for your size of tank. After seeing some full grown ones about a year ago, I wouldn't even put them in my 280g.

Thanks guys.....hmmm, I'll have to rethink that one then. I definitely do not want to go catching a trigger cause it's too big. Oh well, should have build a 1000 gallon tank I guess.

Anybody else have experience with "testing" pygmy angels for nipping?

hey dez i have a niger in my tank he has been fine other than he likes to eat my snails lol

Yours isn't an sps tank though right?

I have a bicolour angel in my tank with clams, SPS, LPS and some softies. No problem...he's been a little angel. ;-)

Every angel (big or small) that I have put in my tank have been nippers. Having said that I have 3 angels in my sps tank that nip constantly (the regal angel angel even removes whole tips) and there have been no ill effects from nipping that I can see

I have no doubt they would kill any lps or clams within hours but sps seem to be made for nipping :lol:

How did we go from Triggers to Angels.... Back to the thread topic

"Trigger in sps dominated tank"

That's how :mrgreen:

i have mostly sps

great we have hackers on the site now
dont click on any of junyhug icons full of worms

edit

the post was there and now its gone lol

We clean that stuff up as soon as we notice it or as soon as someone presses "report this post."

We have a blue jaw trigger in our tank. It has many SPS as well as LPS, softies, a bubble tip anenome, clams, starfish, crabs and snails. No problems at all with the trigger, he mostly keeps to himself and doesn't bother the other fish either

YOu think 150 gallons is too small for a trigger? I have over 300 gallon water volume and 5' swimming space...

I don't know. It's hard to say. I've seen happy triggers in smaller tanks, so you'd think it would be OK. I was just blown away at the crosshatches - until I saw this pair that was full-size, I had been dreaming that "one day" a pair would be my "showcase fish" in my big tank, but when I saw them, I honestly felt they were too big. That's not to say you can't get them smaller though, so that becomes a judgment call - do you get them and sell them (or upgrade) if/when they outgrow the tank? Or will they sort of stop growing (I've never really understood if that's a truth or not with fish). But this was with crosshatch triggers, which are not cheap anyhow (like, think $600-800 for a pair). But a pair of blue throats is considerably more reasonably priced and I think they are smaller. And I honestly don't think you'd have a problem with them in your tank. I've seen a few tanks in the 90-150g size that were "SPS dominated" and had a pair of bluethroats and seemingly everything was fine, so, ..... I say go for it.

Blue throat & Sargassum triggers are reef-safe (at least for your corals). Have both & no problems.

While I support that Blue Throat Triggers are reef safe, my experience with them isn't good. I had a male, and still have a female and both seem(ed) unsuitable for captivity.

Unless it is feeding time, they spend 100% of the time doing repetitive swim patterns trying to escape the tank. My male Blue Throat is famous for wearing a scratch pattern in the tank. At least my female changes her route every few days.

Either I have had incredibly bad luck with these fish...or something about my tank size (400 gallons) or feed, or tankmates, doesn't work for them...or they are just not fish suitable for keeping in aquariums. Both are (were) extremely healthy fish.

So my advice with these fish is to ensure that you purchase the smallest, youngest fish you can find. Maybe then you'll have better luck than me.

We have a niger trigger in our 180g right now. We got him about a year ago and in that year he has grown from about 2 1/2 or 3" to about 7". (He's going back to his 220g original home shortly). We have a few pieces of sps, but other than an accidental fragging of the green digi, he doesn't bother with nipping anything. He does take the odd snail for a ride, though. Picks them off the wall every so often, swims around with them in his mouth for a bit, then drops them. Also, he moves frags around if they're not glued down. He's really quite the character. Beautiful fish.
We also have a coral beauty angel and I haven't noticed any nipping from him. A model citizen for about a year now. I find he isn't as social as other fish, but nonetheless, a nice splash of color.
We've got 3 clams in the tank also, and neither fish bother them.