Clown Triggerfish

Care Summary

One of the most recognizable fish in the hobby: a black body with big white spots across the belly, a yellow ring around the mouth, and leopard-like yellow patterning around the first dorsal fin. Adults can approach 20 inches in the wild, so this is a fish for very large fish-only or FOWLR systems, not reef tanks. The clown triggerfish is not reef safe. It eats molluscs, crustaceans, sea urchins, and tunicates in the wild, and in an aquarium it will crush shellfish, eat shrimp, crabs, and snails, move rockwork around, and may bite at corals and small fish. Keep it singly or with other large, robust fish, add it last, and use heavy, secure rockwork it cannot topple. Feed a varied diet of meaty foods — shrimp, squid, clam, and whole shell-on items so its constantly growing teeth stay worn down. It can learn to recognize its keeper and beg for food, but respect the beak-like teeth, especially at feeding time. Photo: H. Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons