Can Triggers go with soft corals?

[pete_ra]

Ive got a 46 gal bow front with a humu trigger, yellow tang, anenome, and im upgrading my lighting to 250 watts. Im going to get soft corals but ive been cautioned with having a trigger too. Can I have both? if I do, what helps?

[Pineapple House]

The trigger will likely nip at a very wide variety of corals, including Large Polyp Stonies (LPS), Small Polyp Scleractinians (Stoney [SPS]), and soft corals. I wouldn't attempt keeping it with many corals, if any. If you do, I would keep it extremely simple, with corals such as mushrooms, Zooanthids (which is may nip at), Some species of Soft corals (Colts, maybe some leathers) and LPS corals (It will likely be less aggressive towards the more aggressive LPS corals [Hammar, Frogspawn, etc.]). I wouldn't try keeping any SPS for the next 7 months from now, so that's out. I would also stock your tank extremely slowely, adding only one coral every 3 weeks or so, to watch out for that trigger. If any nipping comes up, I would either return the trigger, or return the corals.

I would also try to keep the lowest bio load posible with this tank, as well as maintain good water quality.

Graham

[aj2001]

Pete ra,
Let me say first off, listen to graham, he gave some good advice, especially about the bioload,I have a presently VERY overstocked tank, and I do A LOT more maintanence than the average to keep my water quality high. I do keep 2 triggers in my reef,however, a niger and a sargassum w/o any problems, but they are species known to be less aggressive than your huma huma. I am far from an expert,but I personally would think the huma would be more inclined to go after any shrimp or crabs you may have.
AJ

A couple pics of my triggers can be seen here:
http://www.pbase.com/aj2001/90_gallon&page=1

[pete_ra]

Thanx grahm and aj. As soon as I can, I will remove my damsels to open up more room. When I get lighting, I will probably get polyps, then mushrooms, see if the trigger reacts. I would like to keep him, but ill keep a close eye on the corals. Im gonna keep the plant, but cut it down alittle. Right now im focused on advice to get out the damsels,

[Chryocon]

put food in a big net and wait for them to go in and then raise it, don't have any SW fish yet, but this has always worked with small evil african chiclids I have had to catch, just bend the net so it lays flat, put some food on top, wait for them to come, and raise the net, you may catch your trigger and tang also though....

[Pineapple House]

Do a search on 'The Trap.' I've used it, and it's highly recommended for catching fish which you couldn't easily do with a net and fish food :)

Graham