Clown Trigger: The Dog Trained in a Saltwater Tank

The trigger clown is one of the most unique and interesting species of fish. It is often described as a dog in a fish tank because it can have as much personality as your family’s dog. Some people even pat them, although depending on their individual personality, this could result in a nasty bite.

The Clown Trigger is found in the tropical coastal waters of Africa, the Indo-Pacific region and in the Red Sea, with a depth of one to 75 meters. It lives mainly on coral reefs and can grow up to fifty centimeters long. Its unique coloring and amazing personality is what drives many people to keep this fish as a pet.

The Clown Trigger is a scaleless leathery fish related to a leather jacket. The color pattern of an adult (dark body with large white spots on the belly and fine black spots on a yellow background on top) is clearly different from that of a juvenile (small white spots all over its body with only a small area yellow around his body). dorsal fin), but both are equally beautiful. The adults are a solitary species that is often seen swimming openly in the water. Juveniles are more reserved and often live in small caves.

When nesting, the Clown Trigger will become extremely protective, often attacking drivers who get too close. They have been known to repeatedly bite various blood samples through clothing.

When threatened by a larger fish, the trigger stays upright, making it an uncomfortable way to eat and also widening its spines. This is one of the reasons why you should always use a double bag to transport them. It can also use its spines to fit into the nooks and crannies of the reef, injecting the spines into the rock. It’s common for a trigger to have an unusual sleeping location courtesy of this ability, making it less likely to be detected by a predator.

It is a very robust fish and very easy to keep. It is less prone to developing white spots than other coral reef fish. If a white spot develops, lowering the salinity to 1.018 can remedy it, without the need for medication.

When keeping a clown shooter, you never know what you are going to get as they can get very aggressive. A young Clown Trigger can be compatible with most fish. However, as you mature, your personality can become quite varied. A Clown Triggers growing in a community reef aquarium could grow into a large tame fish, living in harmony with the other inhabitants of the tank. On the other hand, he could become the tank psycho and attack everything including your fish, your corals, your cat, and even you.

While you can never predict how your Trigger’s personality will develop, there is a greater chance of producing a calmer fish if you introduce it to your tank at a younger age, keep it with other placid fish, and do not feed it live food. Ideally, this fish should be fed a variety of high-quality foods, including pellets and frozen foods.

Allowing longer time intervals between feeding, feeding live food, and gradually increasing the size of what you are feeding will have the opposite effect, producing a fish so aggressive that it could easily kill a small shark. In fact, Triggers are more aggressive towards larger creatures like sharks and rays, often nipping them, so be careful when mixing these species. It is also not a good idea to keep Triggers with invertebrates and snails, as these make up a large part of your natural diet.

In the wild, the strong jaws of the Clown Trigger are used to grind up sea urchins, crustaceans, and hard-shelled mollusks. In your aquarium, they could be used to bite through the air line or an electrical wire, so make sure you have a safety switch. They could also bite your hand and tear your flesh, which is very painful, so be careful. (This is another reason to keep them in a double bag when moving, as they can chew only one.)

While they may be a handful, the Triggers have amazing personalities that make them worth your while. They are one of the smartest fish you will come across and often engage in behaviors that appear to be purely for their own entertainment. They will also do many things to get your attention or to feed themselves. This author could relate many strange and wonderful stories involving Triggers. One consists of a Trigger that stacks rocks, piece by piece, into a finely balanced tower. At the risk of sounding anthropomorphic, he seemed quite proud of his work, stopping to admire the structure after each rock successfully balanced and even defending his tower from other fish. When the tower had finally collapsed, the Trigger would start over again making it higher each time. (Along the same lines, a shooter in a coral tank will often relocate corals by picking them up and dropping them wherever it wants.)

On other occasions I have seen Triggers happy to play games like finger tracking or searching. They love running their finger across the glass of the tank. At times, I have repeatedly dropped a small colored object into the tank, only to see the Trigger swim down, pick it up, and spit it out of the water.

It is common for a trigger to do anything to get your attention. They can make loud noises by smashing stones into glass or other rocks, spitting and splashing large amounts of tank water, biting the front glass of the tank, even to the point where they scratch it, or swimming upside down throwing themselves madly at the aquarium glass (possibly also because they are enjoying the strange feeling of starting backwards). If you’re concerned, just make sure you have a set of caps on the tank. This will prevent them from spitting water on the light fixtures and on the floor and jumping out.

Triggers can also be easily taught to jump out of the tank in search of food. Once your Trigger is comfortable with manual feeding, you can slowly start pulling the food out of the water, and of course the fish will swim to get it. Before you know it, the fish will be literally leaping out of the water with pinpoint precision to get the food out of your hand. Over time, they will even pop out of the tank to land on the ground (if not for their trusted network). Just make sure you position the food at the right angle, and of course you catch it every time.

The most infamous trigger this author has saved was a little guy we call Nugget, who didn’t care to be pulled out of the water to feed him. You could even put it in a fish food can and watch it try to eat the food while lying in the can. I would put it back in the water after twenty seconds, but it always seemed ready to do it again, going straight back to where I got it from.

A different type of trigger that you should be aware of is the wavy trigger. This is a much more timid species that spends more time in hiding, making it harder to keep up with their actions. If a Clown Trigger attacks another fish, it will be very clear that it was the Clown Trigger that was responsible. However, with Undulate Trigger it will often appear placid and harmless when around, but it will consistently kill your other fish. The Undulate is much less predictable than a Clown Trigger and should not possibly be kept with other fish. Its color is not as striking as that of Clown Trigger. They are a green looking fish with pale yellow stripes.

The Clown Trigger is truly a fantastic and fascinating fish and an amazing fish to keep. Its beautiful color and incredible personality make it a fish that you will never regret buying and that you will definitely never forget.

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