The Clown Trigger is one of the most unique and interesting species of fish. He is often described as a dog in a fishbowl because he can have just as much personality as your family 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 seventy-five meters. It lives mainly in coral reefs and can grow up to fifty centimeters long. Its unique coloring and amazing personality is what drives so many people to keep this fish as a pet.
The Clown Trigger is a leathery, scaleless 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 the upper part) is clearly different from that of a juvenile (small white spots on the entire body with only a small area yellow around the dorsal fin), but both are equally beautiful. Adults are a solitary species often seen swimming openly in the water. Juveniles are more secretive and usually live in small caves.
When nesting, Clown Trigger will become extremely protective, often attacking drivers who get too close. They have been known to repeatedly bite divers, even drawing blood through clothing.
When threatened by a larger fish, Trigger will stand upright, giving it an awkward shape to eat in and also widening its spines. This is one of the reasons why you should always use a double bag to transport them. He can also use his spines to wedge himself 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 spot thanks to this ability, making it less likely to be seen by a predator.
This is a very robust fish that is very easy to keep. It is less likely to develop white spots than other coral reef fish. If a white spot develops, lowering the salinity to 1.018 can be remedied, without the need for medication.
When you hold a Clown Trigger, you never know what you’re going to get as they can get very aggressive. A young Clown Trigger can be compatible with most fish. However, as he matures, his personality can become quite varied. A Clown Triggers growing in a community reef tank could become a large docile fish, living in harmony with the other inhabitants of the tank. On the other hand, he could become the psycho of the tank 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 better chance of producing a calmer fish by introducing it to your tank at a younger age, keeping it with other placid fish, and not feeding 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 feedings, feeding live foods, 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 biting them, so be careful when mixing these species. It is also not a good idea to keep Triggers with invertebrates and snails, as these form a large part of their natural diet.
In the wild, the Clown Trigger’s strong jaws are used to crush hard-shelled sea urchins, crustaceans, and mollusks. In your aquarium, they could be used to bite into an air line or power cord, 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 double bagged when moving, as they may chew through just one.)
While they may be a handful, the Triggers have amazing personalities that make them worth your time. They are some of the most intelligent fish you will come across and often engage in behavior that appears 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 weird and wonderful stories involving Triggers. One involves a Trigger stacking 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 successfully balanced rock and even defending his tower from other fish. When the tower had finally collapsed, the Trigger would start over making it taller each time. (Likewise, a trigger on a coral tank will often relocate corals by picking them up and dropping them wherever it wants.)
At other times, I’ve seen Triggers happy to engage in games like follow your finger or fetch. They love to run their finger across the glass of the tank. At times, I’ve repeatedly dropped a small colored object into the tank, only to see Trigger swim down, pick it up, and spit it out of the water.
It’s common for a Trigger to do anything to get your attention. They can make loud noises by smashing stones against glass or other rocks, spit and splash large amounts of water out of the tank, bite the front glass of the tank, even to the point of scratching it, or swim upside down throwing like crazy against the glass of the tank. aquarium (possibly also because they are enjoying the strange feeling of starting upside down). If you’re worried, just make sure you have a set of caps on the tank. This will prevent it from spitting water on the lamps and on the ground and jumping.
Triggers can also be easily taught to jump out of the tank to eat. Once your Trigger is comfortable with hand feeding, you can start slowly 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 jumping out of the water with pinpoint precision to take the food from your hand. Over time, they’ll even jump out of the tank to land on the ground (if it wasn’t for their trusted network). Just make sure you place the food at the right angle and of course catch them every time.
The most infamous trigger this author has kept was a little guy we call Nugget, who didn’t mind being pulled out of the water to be fed. He could even place it in a can of fish food and watch him try to eat the food while he is lying in the can. He would put it back in the water after twenty seconds, but he always seemed ready to do it again, going right back to where I got it from.
A different type of activator that you should be aware of is the wavy activator. This is a much more timid species that spends more time in hiding, making it more difficult to be aware of their actions. If a Clown Trigger attacks another fish, it will be very clear that the Clown Trigger was responsible. However, with Undulate Trigger it will often appear placid and harmless when you’re around, but will systematically kill your other fish. The Undulate is much less predictable than a Clown Trigger and probably shouldn’t be kept with other fish. Its coloring is not as striking as that of the 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 amazing personality make this a fish you will never regret buying, and you will definitely never forget.
