Niger and hawkfish tank mates.

[eartaker]

Hey guys so I have a tank that has a little flame hawk in there with a few other small guys and 2 med size tangs. I added a Niger Trigger after his 2 weeks of QT last night and today I saw him dart after my flamehawk. If I remove any of the fish it will be the trigger since my flame has been my buddy for a bit now. Could this just be from the trigger being stressed out from the move or are they going to keep at this? The hawkfish is ~2" long and the trigger is 4-5"

 

[Chichas01]

It's because triggers are/can be very aggressive fish. I was over at Sierra pets yesterday and they have a 10" Naso tang that was attacked by a trigger and now has only one eye. Did not look like the remaining eye would make it

 

[mercenary-grunt]

Nigers are very aggressive. They tend to eat any fish smaller and depending on the size you got they dont tollerate others easly. Allong with will eat any fish added after them.

Sent from my MB525 using Tapatalk 2

 

[eartaker]

The niger was the last fish to be added, I wanted to make sure of that. I havnt noticed anything today but its odd its only the flame hawk. There are other smaller guys in there that he cares less about that hangs out with him.

 

[mercenary-grunt]

There is an agressive threat level that the fish sence. They know who is the threat or not, and who can be. That's why some fish don't do well together other than the " might be eaten" and consepsifics.

 

[eartaker]

What do you guys suggest? Remove or let it play out? I hant seen anything else agressive out of him but that one time.

 

[1guydude]

+1 about the aggressive levels! Im no scientist as eartaker knows but i would call my tank a semi aggressive tank cuz all my fish are in the 2-3" range...urs sounded pretty calm or a community tank than u added the mobster/gangsta and the hawk is kinda the hero of the game. anyways up to u really... u layed it out for them to play it out.

 

[eartaker]

Update....

Well EVERYTHING IS DEAD BUT THE NIGER!!!



Just kidding, haha. Everything is getting along just fine lol, and they all swim together now. There is no aggression shown to any of the other fish from the Niger to the Yellow Tang all the way down to my little Green Chromis. The Flame Hawk runs around with now issued and no longer hides from the trigger. The only time the niger will push someone out of the way is when they are near his little hole he lays in. Its kind of funny when a hermit tries to get in the hole as well. He will pick them up by the shell, move them to one side of the tank and drop them off. In the end he is a cool guy and I'm glad he worked out in my tank.

 

[Raamiah]

Glad to hear things worked out for ya. Sometimes it just takes fish to learn their hierarchy and then once that happens everything mellows out.

 

[mercenary-grunt]

Glad to hear.

Sent from my MB525 using Tapatalk 2