Queen Triggerfish

The Queen Triggerfish is one of the most colorful and majestic triggerfish species, renowned for its stunning palette of blues, greens, yellows, and purples that shifts and intensifies with mood, lighting, and maturity. The body is predominantly blue-green to purple with bold yellow-orange lines radiating from the eyes and mouth. The dorsal and anal fins are edged in brilliant blue, and long trailing filaments extend from the tips of the caudal fin, giving the fish a regal, flowing appearance that justifies its common name.

In the wild, the Queen Triggerfish is found across the tropical and subtropical Atlantic, from Florida and the Caribbean to Brazil and the eastern Atlantic coast of Africa. It inhabits coral reefs, rocky areas, and sandy bottoms, feeding primarily on sea urchins, which it dispatches with a clever technique of blowing water jets to flip the urchin over, exposing the vulnerable underside. It also feeds on crabs, mollusks, starfish, and various hard-shelled invertebrates.

The Queen Triggerfish is a hardy but demanding aquarium species that requires an extremely large tank due to its adult size of up to 24 inches. It is intelligent, interactive, and capable of recognizing its keeper, but it is also highly aggressive and territorial, particularly as it matures. Adults will dominate any tank they inhabit and may attack fish of considerable size. It is not reef-safe and will consume every invertebrate in the aquarium. This species is best suited for very large fish-only systems dedicated to aggressive predatory fish.