blue throat triggers-- reef safe?
 

i have seen two tanks now with blue throat triggers in them. both where reef tanks. is the consensus that they are generally reef safe? and are they mildly agressive? what problems have people encountered having them among coral

All triggers are reef safe when it comes to corals (mostly), the issue is they often like to eat tank mates and all the clean up crew. Blue Throats are one of the least problematic triggers, and generally do well in a reef.

I have a male and female Blue Throat. Each is about 6" or more. They show no interest in hermit crabs, SPS, clams, LPS or soft coral. So, I suppose that makes them "reef safe". I feed them very well, so that may contribute to their lack of nibbling.

The male blue throat ate a large feather duster worm.

The have voracious appetites. I would NOT recommend them unless you enjoy/want to feed your tank heavily. Between the two of them, they could easily polish off a golf ball sized lump of food, daily.

They get large. Even in my 400 gallon system, they are NOT happy in captivity and tend to swim in repetitive patterns unless being fed. They have teeth, and will draw blood if you are bitten. They have extremely rough, tough skins and they will scratch an acrylic tank just by rubbing up against it.

So my personal recommendation is that they are reef safe, but I would only recommend them for a VERY large, glass-only, tank.

Oh yes, my male often gets involved in high speed chasing of the female which results in them crashing through SPS branches, causing unplanned frags. While you can see the scrapes on their skins from these run-ins, the scrapes heal up in hours.

I had small male in my reef tank, he was great, I had to get rid of him though because he was getting to big.

there are two basic flavours of triggers. upturned mouthed trigs and down turned mouthed trigs. The upturned mouthed trigs like blue throats, nigers, crosshatch, pinktails, etc specialize in planktonic feeding and are as peaceful as a trigger can be. The downturned mouthed trigs like clowns, undulated etc specialize in benthic feeding and are usually much more aggressive and considered less reef safe.