Florida Fish I.D. ?

[benter]

Found this guy when we were cycling our 75g, right after Hurricane Charlie came through..He had washed over the sand dunes and we found him in a puddle in a (what used to be) mangrove swamp. At the time he was about the size of a penny, and the same color. When we put him in the tank he changed to white..He is very good at changing colors..and has grown ALOT:yes: ..He is now about the diameter of a baseball, and lives with a Huma Huma..He is more aggressive than the Huma is, I can tell you that..Anyway I have been told he is a Filefish, but he sure seems to have the characteristics of a trigger to me ..but I am not an expert.. I'm sure one of you guys know..By the way it was off the coast of Fort Myers..Thanks

 

[fishy411]

yeah i think its a filefish. They do look similiar to triggers but have a less stretched out body.

 

[benter]

Thanks..Any idea how big he will get?

 

[fishy411]

nvr seen that exact species so i dont really know.

 

[harlequin]

Yes, One of my little buddies. They are Planehead Filefish. I have three babies in my 65 reef and my gf has two of my older ones in her tank. They are a very personable fish and do great in home aquariums and are reef safe although they may nip at new corals at first out of curiousity but quickly quit paying attention to it when it gets boring. On that note however, little ones can be kept with hermits, but once they are bigger (2"-3"), they get mean and will kill off hermits and maul shrimp instantly. For food every now and then like triggers they need a hard shelled crustacean to file their teeth down, but living close to the water, that doesnt sound like it would be a problem to you. Another cool thing about them in addition to their color changing ability is that each one has a prefered color pattern, be it green, white or extremely dark/almost black- green. They also seem to form pair bonds or do at least when juveniles. They get to around 9 inches in length.
Stephanoplepis hispidus

 

[evilss]

cool pic. seems like an intresting fish. thanks harlequin for the additional info.

 

[benter]

Thank you very much for the info..and yes he is very interesting..and no lightweight either..he wont back down from the huma huma - all..again thanks

 

[harlequin]

I just re-read the original post and noticed something I didnt before. Filefish are very close relatives to triggers. The main difference is in dorsal spines of which triggers have two and files have one. In my tank with the three juv files I also have a bigger Niger Trigger whom sometimes it almost appears as they treat him as one of them. Also files stay a little smaller generally than triggers but there are always exceptions to everything involving biology.