Undulated triggerfish & tankmates

[ttriple1]

I have about a 4" undulated, a 4" huma, about a 5" white tail (brown except his tail) triggers living in perfect harmony - along with a 3 ft moray eel, 7" dogface puffer, 4" stars & stripes puffer, 3" violatin puffer, and a tiny .5" damsel (the damsel has made it 11 mos in there with this nothing but killers tank). The undulated trigger i find is very territorial, stay's in this one rock most of the time - and will back off his competition - the huma, but definately not the meanest. I love it - it is an awesome looking fish! Then again it is a 125 gal tank too. I would get one - it is sweet!

Tony

 

[local hero]

undulates are sneaky mean, they will usually hit at night terrorizing almost anything in the tank I believe the key is to get some non-related fish established first (clarks or maroon clowns, most non-panther groupers, large thalasomma wrasse species)

 

[mybikeisred]

I now have a 6" undulate with a 7" blueline, a 4" picasso (added first), and a small mineatus grouper 4 1/2" or so living peacefully in a 55g. He looked mean as hell in the pet store (in the same tank as the blueline). Brought him home, and he sleeps with the mineatus in the same shell.

 

[Princley]

YES i ahd one with some loinfish , a niger trigger and even a blue headed wrasse...with out any problems , how ever once he got large i moved him to his own tank ..wich was the headboard of my bed

 

[fishking]

by my titan, all was going ok, until the titan saw the undulated eating his crayfish...The titan is the meanest trigger around, but ironically I have a pink tail trigger thats 3 inches bigger then the 6 inch Titan that has been holding his own. And yes even that large clown in the back ground was killed, i also have a northern puffer that the titan despises but for now alls well in my 180

 

[Don4921]

try a panther grouper or a saddle back they donttake crap and try a dottybak forgot the name but the one i have in the tank is three times smaller then the groupers and he stands his ground

 

[Tanyoberu]

I don't have a trigger fish but I have and do keep aggressive fish (puffers) and other fish that typically don't do well with other tank mates. The thing is to find what uh, triggers that aggression and curve it.

A lot of times it is just being in a small tank (compared to the ocean), cramped with other fish. How would you react being confined in a 20 X 20 foot room with dogs, cows and other people? I'd think your captors would come one day to find that you've completely demolished everything in your space too. So it is with these fish. They have a lesser tolerance than others to be confined. But, as some have stated, it is possible to keep the fish with other species peacibly. And that is the solution you should search for.

I believe a "happy" fish is a peaceful fish. Try adding other elements to your tank in the form of borders, hiding places... ENTERTAINMENT! Yup, to curb my bronze puffers from chewing on their tank mates, I added snails. Now they spend most of their time using their brains and advanced eyes to hunt the crunchy critters. Since then, none of the other tank mates have been harrassed or nipped, in over a year.

Or, what's on the menu? If you put a tiger cub in with a calf, what do you think will eventually happen? But if you keep that tiger well fed, the calf will have a chance of survival. So while most of us tend to keep our fish well fed in our opinion, sometimes it's a matter of the fish fending off competition because they are not getting enough. Or maybe they are lacking a vitamin. (Have you ever craved a food item?) Diversity of diet was the solution for one of my fish and more of it. Since there was enough food, the competition stopped. The tank needed to be cleaned a heck of a lot more, but there was not comp.

Then there was the Tilapia. It's trigger was being alive. He stopped harrasing the fish when I added butter and a frying pan. (Ok, I didn't eat him...)

But find the trigger for your trigger and you'll have a nice tank. Being alone isn't always the answer for the fish. It's a solution for you. Try to make your fish happy.


I should be the Fish Whisperer!

 

[Russy Pelican]

Well, I'm intrigued to hear that anyone has had luck keeping triggers together for a long period. I've tried it a dozen times at least, and one fateful day, there is always carnage I've come home to. I had a good sized snowflake moray with a clown trigger for about a year once, and no problems.. until I came home one day to find about an inch of the eel's tail missing.

 

[DRONE017E]

Hard to say, try eels. any other simialr shaped fish or similar size will get attacked.

 

[chrisdef15]

Im only a noob on this site but i had kept an undulate from when he was 3" to 10" but i just recently got rid of him. Yes it might be possible when they are a few inches up to 5 or 6 maybe to have them with tank mates as long as there are plenty of places to hide. But once they mature they need way more space for territory then your average tank will give it. I had him with a fimbriate morey, tuskfish, coral cod or miniatus grouper i think US people call them and a niger trigger in a 6x2x2. He was the last fish introduced and over the 2 years i had him he one by one attacked and forced me to move all the fish out of the tank to another. The fimbriate was the last to go so maybe try a eel but i still say no because my undulate would just track down the eels tail in the rocks and bite it and retreat before the fimbriates head could get to him. The only thing i had luck with at the end was damsels and he still picked them off every now and then but as they werent any sort of threat or danger to him he didnt seem to attack them like he does bigger fish. He basically ignored them as long as he wasnt hungry.