Odd Trigger Behaviour....

[CanadianReefer]

So I bought a girlfriend for my blue throat trigger. All is well with her - she made it through QT and into the display tank - and for all intents and purposes, she looks quite healthy and fat. However, since she has been placed in the DT, she refuses to eat the normal food. Instead, she swims around underneath the fish and eats their poop - even while everybody else is munching down on all sorts of awesome stuff... If she accidentally scoops up a piece of mysis (etc. - their food is quite varied) she spits it out and eats the poop beside it.

Now, most of my tangs do this and I know that it's fairly normal behaviour for them - but they also eat regular food and nori.

Given that I have several tangs, most of their poop comes out like nori anyway, so I'm assuming that she is still getting quite a lot of nutrients regardless... but, how strange!

I've never known triggers to be like this. Has anyone else shared this experience? Should I be worried at all that she's not getting enough to stay healthy?

 

[sfin52]

My bt triggers tear up algea. Maybe she is going after that.

 

[Darryl]

all my triggers eat sheets of nori and algae including algae wafers
My clown trigger when i first got him would only eat flake food and after 4 years still have to put in a tiny pinch of flake food before he will eat all the good yum yums

 

[eatbreakfast]

Quite a few fish are coprophagous. This is more likely to happen when tbe "pooper" is an inefficient digester. The consumer will eat it for further undigested nutrients.

 

[CanadianReefer]

So I tried an experiment and took a sheet of nori, and rather than put it on the clip (only the male blue jaw eats off the clip), I crumbled it up and fed it in the water column. She went nuts eating. I guess she simply prefers the taste of nori over the other meatier foods...

So I figure I will crumble a sheet of nori in with their food mix. If she eats it, she will also get the benefit of eating the vitamins and minerals I add to their food, which I think are important to keeping them healthy.

My only concern is the nutrients I'll be adding to the tank. Nori is notorious for adding phosphate, and if you read my other post "devastated", you'll understand why this is a big concern...