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Related FAQs: Melichthys Triggers, Triggerfishes
in General,
Triggerfish:
Identification,
Selection,
Selection 2, Compatibility,
Behavior,
Systems, Feeding,
Diseases, Triggerfish
Health 2, Reproduction,
Related Articles: Triggerfishes (Family Balistidae),
Red
Sea Triggerfishes, Triggers of the Cook
Islands, Hawaiian Triggerfishes,
/The Best Livestock for A Marine Aquarium (Series)
Triggerfishes of the Genus Melichthys
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by Bob Fenner
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Melichthys vidua |
The genus Melichthys: three species.
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Melichthys indicus (Randall & Klausewitz 1973), the Indian
Triggerfish. Indian Ocean, Red Sea including east African coast. To ten inches
in length. A good fish-only aquarium species. This one in the Maldives.
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Most wholesalers offer two species of Melichthys more or less continuously, the
circumtropical Black (Durgon) Triggerfish, Melichthys niger (Bloch 1786) (usually out of Hawai’i), to
eighteen inches. Pictured: an individual in the Bahamas, and one in Maui,
Hawai'i.
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And the
Pinktail Trigger, Melichthys vidua (Richardson 1845), is the other
commonly offered member of the genus. Found throughout the Indo-Pacific. These are
"medium" aggressive fish species that grow to about a foot in length
in captivity, sixteen inches in the wild. Here are specimens in captivity and
Hawai'i.
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