Pairing Blue Throat triggerfish

Delphinus · #1 03-23-2011, 10:37 PM

I am finding that, and this is more of a generalization of all fish as opposed to specifically about triggers, that basically, if they don't come in as an established pair, odds are not good that you can make a pair. To the point that I now get really annoyed at stores that will sell individuals out of a pair - if they come in as a pair, they should be sold as a pair, period. Because you can't really make pairs out of non-pairs.

I can only imagine how much worse it would be for triggers with their massive tempers.

I bet the only way you can do it is to have them in the same tank but partitioned off with eggcrate so they can see and smell each other but not inflict too much damage.

I tried recently to pair up two rabbitfish of the same species by introducing them into a new tank. I thought maybe because neither had seen the tank before that maybe they would, if not "pair up" per se, at least form a small school-of-two. Boy was I wrong. The smaller one was dead within 2 days. So my strategy of "wait 3 days to see if the aggression subsides" was the wrong call in that case.

And it's weird because I don't really see how the damage actually gets done. For the most part the aggressor seems to "swim really angrily" and the weaker one acts like it hurts. "Ahhhh! Please stop swimming so angrily!! <Gak!> <Dies>".

In short: fish are dumb, man. Dumb dumb dumb. Expect problems.

Having said all that I do find myself wishing I had a pair of crosshatches and keep wondering how I could ever take the one I have right now and add a second one and there be a successful transition into "pair-hood". Again though I think the only strategy would be to have a partitioned tank and let them see each other without hurting each other and then gradually remove the partition somehow over time (ie., remove it then replace it an hour later or something like that, then rinse and repeat). However there was a fellow on Canreef posting a couple weeks ago that he had done this same strategy with CBB's and it wasn't working out, they constantly were trying to fight each other through the eggcrate. So, I don't know.

Ryanst · #2 03-24-2011, 12:29 AM

I guess i might as well put a good story in here. I had a female crosshatch trigger for about 8 months then I finally found a male. I just threw him in there and they never fought. I dont know if it matters but there was a huge size difference between my triggers the female is around 3.5 to 4 inches long and the male is around 7.5 inches.

untamed · #3 03-24-2011, 01:35 AM

I added a female blue throat to the established male's tank. He hated her. Although it never got to violent, it was clear that they did not like each other until the day the male left to live at the Vanc aquarium.

ponokareefer · #4 03-24-2011, 05:40 AM

That's not what I wanted to hear Tony!

I realize this probably has a long shot of working now, so not sure what I am going to do. My female was actually sold to me as a small male, as it had a slight tinge of blue on its jaw and no color on its fins. When the red/brown developed on the tail and blue dissapeared, I knew I didn't have what I was looking for. I'm not sure I want to risk the fighting as it not only affects the 2 fish, but seems to stress out all the fish in the tank.

ponokareefer · #5 03-25-2011, 03:27 PM

Just to give an ending to this thread, I found the male triggerfish dead today after not seeing it at all yesturday. I guess the stress of getting beat up the first few days was too much. Something that others said is was so easy ends up in a dead fish. I'm not impressed at all.

Delphinus · #6 03-25-2011, 05:56 PM

Ohh man I'm so sorry. I feel for you. That is the EXACT same outcome really that I had when attempting to pair up my rabbitfish and then before that about a year ago I tried to pair up two golden dwarf eels. ALL the advice I was given was essentially "go for it because things will be fine" and in both cases the newcomer to the equation died before I was able to separate them. It's such a hard judgment call because there is ALWAYS hazing at first and in many cases this subsides after a few days and so when you're in that period it's so difficult to gauge whether you should wait out that first week and see how it goes, or whether you really do need to do an intervention for the sake of preventing one from dieing. So I was incredibly annoyed and disappointed at the bad advice I was given at the time.

That said, despite my intuition that I probably will never pull it off, I would LOVE to pair my crosshatch one day .. so I was still hoping to hear that there'd be a happier ending to your story than this.

ponokareefer · #7 03-25-2011, 06:46 PM

It was a little strange, as the first 2 days, there was minimal damage to the male and was still out and swimming around. The next 2 days, the male had found a cave and occasionally came out and the female only "eyed" him. I thought it was going fairly well. Then part way through the 5th day, the female went ape chasing the male into the cave and attacking him. The male eventually went out of his cave, at which point, I caught the female.