| Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI |
| Questions and Answers | |||||
Continued from page 3I must say that from the number of visitors to this document many people seem to be interested in OOP and his games, and in Clown Triggers in general. The number of visitors to this document exceeds all my expectations with an average of over 1000 visits a day and over 1150 yesterday. Hope you enjoy it.
OOP had a rough night, mainly because I was up very late and the lights were on so he could not go to sleep! I described how he does that in Part V and how OOP gave my wife a shock when she saw him in his sleeping position.
Pat on our reefkeeping@athiel.com mailing list (to which you need to subscribe via the web page http://www.athiel.com - link way at the top in blue), asked a few specific questions about the tank etc. ...
I will list the questions and my answers below.
Pat: I've really enjoyed reading about your new friend OOP (of course all my animals are real friends). He seems like he has quite a bit of character!
Albert: Yes indeed, but that is not unusual for Triggers and especially for Clown Triggers. I discovered though that their behavior is totally different when kept alone in a tank than when mixed with other fish. Suddenly the fish has a whole tank to him/her self and that makes things a little easier as Triggers are not the most non-aggressive fish, although, as you will see, they can easily become tame and real friendly.
Pat: I can't imagine having the confidence and skill to set up a new tank, bring home such a unique fish (expensive?) and have him eating out of your hand in a week.
Albert: Clown Triggers are not unique I would say but they may not be the type of staple fish most stores carry. They will be glad to order you one though. My personal viewpoint is that I like to see what I buy especially if one deals with a delicate fish and Clown Triggers are because so many are caught with sodium cyanide and many do not survive.
A wholesaler who shall remain unnamed told me not too long ago that out of the typical shipment of 100, maybe 10 to 15 will actually make it.
That is real bad. It proves that collecting still needs to make a lot of progress. That is also the reason that when you see one that is in good shape, the price will be rather high. The size OOP is would cost you around $200.00 to acquire. Not that I paid that much. I have the fortunate ability to buy wholesale.
As to confidence and experience etc., the key was to have a tank ready that was cycled, in which OOP could be placed so that he would not have to go through ammonia and nitrite spikes as, in addition to traveling stress, that would certainly result in the fish breaking out with parasites.
Of course I use Vitamin C to prevent that. (check the Vitamin C article on our web site http://www.athiel.com on the main index page, if you have not already done so). I now dose at 3 ppm daily, which is lower than when I started, but that is how it is best done.
Even though OOP went through a considerable amount of stress, he did just fine and did not catch a speck of anything that even remotely looked like a parasite. Vitamin C will help you achieve that, and cure the fish of parasites if you have infected fish. Again the article on C on our web site goes into great detail on the subject.
Was there a lot of skill involved? I guess it depends on how you look at it. If the tank you are placing a fish in has to go through a cycle then you are, indeed, likely to run into problems. If the tank is cycled well enough though this will not happen.
Adjust the water quality parameters and all should be fine. I run the salinity at 35 ppt, the temp at around 78-80 and the pH around 8.2 but all parameters tend to vary between day and night. This is fine because they occur slowly so they do not stress the fish, in this case OOP.
Yes this is an expensive fish. If you decide to get one make sure you are prepared for it, and do not have to put it into a tank that is likely to give you problems. It should definitely go in a cycled tank. Use Vit C and feed the fish a lot. Balistoides conspicilum is a voracious eater and needs it.
Now with regard to handfeeding: that takes a little experience indeed. you first put the food at the end of a toothpick and let the fish grab it off the toothpick. You then start shortening the pick till you really only have a short piece with the food on it but your fingers are near the mouth of the fish when it takes the food off.
The next is just a little daring actually, that is really all it is. Hold the food in your fingers so it stretches out in front of them (sticks out). The fish will swim up to it and pick the food which is closer to its mouth (which in this case is real small anyway - but can open quite a bit, be aware).
Once you have done this a few times the fish just knows I guess to take the food and swim backwards and munch.
You cannot feed real small pieces of course as that would result in the fish having difficulty getting the food without touching your fingers too.
I feed 3/4 pea size bits of shrimp or scallop or mussel meat and that works well.
Stroking the fish is no problem at all. You just need to insert your hand in the tank and make sure it does not smell of food!!! This is important. Then go to the side of the fish and just rub it and it will sort of hang around for a stroke or two and then swim away. The key is to go real slow. Do not insert your hand in the water rapidly as this will frighten the fish. I stick a few fingers in and move my hand in slowly and then move it slowly towards the side of the fish.
Note that I cannot take responsibility for what happens in your case as I am not there with you to see how you are doing it.
Of course, doing so in one week has a lot to do with how often you do it in one day so the fish gets used to it faster. Sort of Pavlovian training and if you keep at it the fish will learn faster.
Pat: Could you elaborate on the house (tank) you built for OOP? Why ws he so comfortable so quickly and what do you think makes the difference?
Albert: Well Pat, first of all OOP is by himself in the tank so there is no problems of territory to deal with and that in itself makes a big difference in my opinion. There are no threats and so the fish gets calm and at ease with its environment faster. That is certainly a big factor to consider. If there were other fish in the tank, things would be a little different and some aggressiveness would come out for sure. How much would depend on the type of fish.
The house, as you call it, is a bunch of rock arranged in such a way that there are several caves OOP can go into and hide if he so wishes. And he actually does that quite a few times during the day, always facing front wards. I guess observing what goes on (he is nosy there is no doubt about that).
The caves were built using Aragocrete rock from GARF that came in various shapes and I just stacked them in such a way that I ended up with caves that dead-end and two that are like swim-through ones.
In my opinion this again brings calmness to the fish as it can go and hide if that is what strikes it to do at the time. There is plenty of open swimming space too but the caves are sort of a "treat".
I think you will find that lots of fish like this kind of an arrangement. Not just OOP
OOP stay out for the better part of the day and when he goes into a cave he may stay for a few minutes and then come swimming out.
Good water quality and the above is what is needed. I don't think I did anything particular other than ensuring a suitable environment and good water quality.
Because of the several feedings a day one needs to watch for ammonia and adjust the amount of filtration if needed. OOP is kind of a sloppy eater so small pieces end up falling to the bottom and are not always easy to get too. If you find that NH4 appears that should be an indication that more live rock is necessary or that some kind of other supplemental filtration is in order.
You wanted to know what I thought made a big difference in how well fish do in fish-only tanks. I have written about this in our Newsletter (which is temporarily not being sent but will resume early next year).
I have ran several fish-only tanks with lots of live rock in them and found that the fish do a lot better in that kind of environment especially if the rock is well populated.
What you do need to pay attention to of course is that the amount of life on the rock grows faster than what the fish deplete. What this means is that you will probably end up with a tank with a lower number of fish and lots of live rock.
If you increase the number of fish you should account for the feeding on the rock they do and probably increase the amount of rock you have. When doing so you will need lighting over the tank that sustains growth on the rock.
In my experience such tanks do much better than the ones we used to set up with dead coral. Also, live rock seems to keep fish healthier and clean of parasites.
Pat: How big will OOP get? How long do you expect him to live? What companions am I planning? Is there a love interest in his future?
Albert: OOP will get larger but not much since he is in a 30 gallon tank and so the size of the tank will kind of limit how large he gets but I suspect that he will grow another 2 inches at least.
I expect him to live forever of course
. No seriously, if nothing out of the ordinary happens I expect that he will live several years. I may move him to a larger tank as I have a cube 2x2x2 sitting here that is drilled and that I could set up for him. I will probably do so as soon as I get time and all the fittings I need etc. At this point I have not decided on companions and on trying to breed him. I have not heard too much good info about breeding triggers so unless I am willing to go through some experiments I don't think I will get involved in that just as yet. But who knows. Aren't we all thinkers?
It sure would be a real money making proposition if I could. These fish are not inexpensive and tank bred ones would fetch a premium but I know of no one who has done it successfully beyond a spawn.
Well I hope this answers all your questions. Thank you for bringing them up.
And yes Pat he did actually eat the German potato salad pieces I fed him. Not the best food around for a Trigger but it shows that when fishes are in good quality water and hungry they will sometimes eat foodstuff you would not imagine. The only drawback to it was that my skimmer went flat for over 4 hours due to the oily materials in it.
Back to OOP:
He had shrimp 2x today and seems satiated. He did a few things, well you know put a P in front of his name and you will understand. I am sure he's been doing this for a while but I had a chance to see it happen today. Not very exciting really and not my favorite form of fun
. I can think of better things to do than watch that. Right now he is in a cave and has been there for probably two or three minutes so I expect him to come out soon. In fact, if I walked over to the tank he would be out in a flash, probably thinking more food was coming.
There are not too many hermit crabs left in the tank and most of the ones there are larger types. He did manage to bugger up one today though. He worked hard at turning it over and then just pulled it out of the shell. I did not see the whole event but saw the beginning when he was sort of playing with it and the end when he was jerking the thing around until the hermit loosened and came out of the shell. Then just munch much munch ... but I guess such is nature.
OOP loves crabs by the way but as I said I need to find a good source for them.
He definitely has favorite spots in the tank and I do not know for what reason but he will go there and sort of "hang" in the water for minutes on end before moving elsewhere.
Odd, not really. I was reading a text by some obscure writer from the 80's who described just that behavior and was alarmed because he thought that his Trigger was in trouble. Not so.
Well so much for today. More to follow. OOP say HI and wishes you a nice long Columbus day week-end and if you go to a pet store and see one of his brothers or sisters "methinks" as Andy would say, perhaps you want to try one too and see if you can find some similar behaviors or even more funny ones.
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