Clown Triggerfish changing colors?

dfabrikant

Member
I was wondering if anyone has seen a Clown Triggers colors change or if theres something wrong with him? Before the strip on his nose was pure white now its black and no pictures of them online show with black. I know hes getting bigger but just wondering if they change colors as they mature.
 

rldavisou

Member
yeah, they do undergo some changes as they grow. for example, here's a photo I found on another site of one that's about 2".
They also lose some color at night, as all triggers do.
 

kjr_trig

Active Member
He is dangerously thin...If he is eating well, I would really suspect he has intestinal worms, his stomach is very sunken. This is a seriously life threatening aliment that needs to be addressed.
Yes though, baby clown Triggs are a bit different from adults.
 

dfabrikant

Member
really? well he has been acting weird lately he hangs out in the corner and only come out to eat and also seems to be afraid and hides when people are around where he used to just swim back an forth wanting food. He is eating well he eats frozen brine shrimp twice a day and freeze dried shrimp in between. Is this contagious? and how would you treat it?
 

srfisher17

Active Member
I'm with kjr_trig. This guy seems very under-nourished and needs feedings of big, meaty seafood chunks. Shrimp, squid, clam, frozen silversides,etc. Brine shrimp is not an adequate diet staple. I'd get him on fresh seafood, with a vitamin supplement ASAP.
 

kjr_trig

Active Member
Originally Posted by dfabrikant
http:///forum/post/2659568
really? well he has been acting weird lately he hangs out in the corner and only come out to eat and also seems to be afraid and hides when people are around where he used to just swim back an forth wanting food. He is eating well he eats frozen brine shrimp twice a day and freeze dried shrimp in between. Is this contagious? and how would you treat it?

Yeah, I would get him some vitamin enriched meaty foods ASAP...suppliment with Kent Vitamin C, and ZoeCon or Selcon....There are a lot of people on this site that know more about treating illness than I do....Aquaknight is probably the most knowledgeable that is regularly in this forum, I expect he will see this, but I will PM him anyway.
 

aquaknight

Active Member
Agreed with the above, if he eating, then he definitely should have more weight. If you could post the specifics, how large is the CT, what have you been feeding him, what tank he's in, what if any tankmates, etc.
However, I would diagnose intestinal worms at this point. The tell-tale sign is if he has strange feces (stringy, solid lengths, colored wrong, worms in feces, etc.). Unfortunately the cure requires more then just vitamins to be added, but the good news is the treatment is virtually the same. The drug Praziquantel is used to treat worms. The only catch is you wouldn't be able to keep other types of worms in your tank, such as feather dusters or coco worms, but with a CT, I don't think you have any of those
The most commonly available commercial product is PraziPro, (should be available at most LFS's), it's a bottle of liquid, just like the vitamins. At first, I would soak his food in the PraziPro for 30 minutes, then add some of the bottled garlic supplements to mask the taste for another 15 minutes, this stuff really isn't too appetizing. I recommend soaking some of the large marine pellets (Ocean Nutrition's Formula or New Life Spectrum), as they will 'suck up' the meds better typically then frozen foods.
If he refuses to eat food, you'll have to dose the tank. If you have a quarantine tank, I would remove the fish to it, and treat him in there. If not, you can treat the main tank, but depending on size, you need a bit of the stuff (1 teaspoon per 20 gallons IIRC), and you'll need to turn your skimmer off (which will require your water changes to be increase). Follow the instructions on the bottle.
If that doesn't work, he might have a dinoflagellate infection. The treatment for that is meds with Metronizazole. Though dino infections are relatively uncommon and should be treated second.
 

aquaknight

Active Member
Edit to the above, didn't see the part about feeding brine and freeze-dried krill. This currently diet is very, very poor, the equivalent of a human eating solely butter lettuce and rice cakes. Fresh seafood, as mentioned, is definitely the way to go and enriching (soaking) them in vitamin&fats supplements.
That said, I've seen porcupine puffers maintain weight on just freeze-dried krill, so I would definitely observe the feces, as disgusting as it might sound.
 

srfisher17

Active Member
Just another bit of my drivel; I worm all new fish in QT (just like a new puppy) and also dose with copper. Lots of folks think this is a little extreme; but its worked for me for many years. Also; freeze dried krill, soaked in Selcon, etc., is a fairly bulky and nutritious food for triggers and similar fish.
 

prime311

Active Member
Krill causes lockjaw in fish, especially puffers but also other fish. I would avoid using it as a large part of your fish's diet. I can't post links, but if you google krill and lockjaw you'll see what I mean.
 

kjr_trig

Active Member
Originally Posted by prime311
http:///forum/post/2660551
Krill causes lockjaw in fish, especially puffers but also other fish. I would avoid using it as a large part of your fish's diet. I can't post links, but if you google krill and lockjaw you'll see what I mean.
I believe only if it is the majority food given Prime, it can certainly be a good part of a balanced diet, particularly if like SrFisher said it is dosed with vitamins.
 

kjr_trig

Active Member
Originally Posted by srfisher17
http:///forum/post/2660529
Just another bit of my drivel; I worm all new fish in QT (just like a new puppy) and also dose with copper. Lots of folks think this is a little extreme; but its worked for me for many years. Also; freeze dried krill, soaked in Selcon, etc., is a fairly bulky and nutritious food for triggers and similar fish.

What do you use Steve? The PraziPro Aqua mentioned?
 

aquaknight

Active Member
You have to be careful with freeze dried foods. The process of removing water leaves trapped salt behind. The trapped salt is not good for freshwater fish, so many freeze drier products have additionally processes that remove the salt. But as a side effect, those processes remove many of the remaining nutrients needed by marine fish. Re-enriching the freeze-dried with supplements is a good way to get them to the fish, as being freeze-dried, I'm sure they'd suck up a ton of the supplement. However being freeze-dried the food becomes fragile and brittle, so many times what you wind up with in your can of food is just bits and filler of food. Whole peices of food are more nutritious.
 

srfisher17

Active Member
Originally Posted by kjr_trig
http:///forum/post/2660611
What do you use Steve? The PraziPro Aqua mentioned?
I use something from my "Vets" that contains praziquantel ; the active ingredient in Prizpro.
Re: Freeze dried krill; Like most foods, I don't think any single item should be used exclusively. Freeze dried stuff is probably about 15% of what I feed. I think variety & vitamins are real keys to long-term success with all fish; especially larger carnivores.
 

slackjawed

Member
Originally Posted by srfisher17
http:///forum/post/2660863
I use something from my "Vets" that contains praziquantel ; the active ingredient in Prizpro.
Re: Freeze dried krill; Like most foods, I don't think any single item should be used exclusively. Freeze dried stuff is probably about 15% of what I feed. I think variety & vitamins are real keys to long-term success with all fish; especially larger carnivores.
sounds like it need a dose of live silversides
 

dfabrikant

Member
Well in the tank is 1 Clown Trigger hes about 5-6 inches im guessing in a 75gal, 1 Blue Damsel, 2 Green Chromis, 1 engineer goby, 1 choc. chip starfish, and a mix of blue legged and brown legged crabs. I only have live rock in the tank with them. Today I went to the LFS and bought some Praziquantel, as well as a small tank, which the lady there told me to put my starfish, crabs, snails in while I treated the tank. So I did a 25% water change and treated the tank, the instructions are only every other day for 3 treatments, so I guess I wont know anything till next week. What should I feed the fish in the process of the treatments, their regular food? Right now the crabs starfish and snails are in there own tank with sand and live rock....If this doesnt work they have treatments for bacteria infections...but the Trigger is still eating he just seems to sit in the corner of the tank, where as he used to be very active and his colors are getting darker, which they also told me at the LFS that is not a good sign but they were unsure what the cause was...where do they get intestinal parasites from?
 

dfabrikant

Member
Originally Posted by srfisher17
http:///forum/post/2659622
I'm with kjr_trig. This guy seems very under-nourished and needs feedings of big, meaty seafood chunks. Shrimp, squid, clam, frozen silversides,etc. Brine shrimp is not an adequate diet staple. I'd get him on fresh seafood, with a vitamin supplement ASAP.
Unfortuantly I tried to find some clams and other live fish for him but I live in the country and went to every store and no one sells these and the LFS only has frozen packs, which I did buy him frozen squid an he wouldnt even eat it all, not like he does shrimp and thats why I hes only getting that diet, looks like im gonna have to order food, I just hated to do that and spend more then the food on shipping
 
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