Niger Trigger Reef safe or not?

well I've heard people say that niger triggers are reef safe, but some have said no, but I've seen a niger trigger in a reef tank, so which is true?

 

sometimes they are reef safe. But when they taste coral, they won't stop.

 

ahh I see; so basically its a 50/50 chance, right?

 

I had one in my FOWLR tank a while ago. When I decided to get into corals, he was doing OK initially but a few months after I introduced corals he started picking at everything in sight so I had to get rid of him. Very cool fish though, he's still in my friend's FOWLR tank and always fun to watch.

 

It's only 50/50 if you look at it from the perspective of "either it eats or doesn't". It's almost guaranteed to not be 50/50 if you look at it as "what are the chances of it eating coral?"

 

reef safe with luck, I believe is the term.

 

I had a toby once, they fall in the RSWL category, It was coral safe but would bite the tips of anemones tentacles off for fun.

 

Love the Niger trigger, but won't get one till we get a 210 (won't fit in the 55 LOL). Even then it will probably depend on what kind of corals we want to keep when we upgrade!

 

For those that did have them eat corals..... Exactly what corals did they eat?

 

I had a 8" Niger for 6-7 months and didn't pick on a single coral or invert. The main issues I had was:
1) Triggers burrow, stirring the sand often onto coral. As a result, more maintenance was required.
2) Any time I added a new coral (he kept record of placement of items within the tank and he didn't like change), he would move it to another location. Especially if it was placed on rock or in his sleeping area. The only instance where I did loose coral as a result of the Niger, was because he dropped a coral into the sand and I didn't notice for a day or so. Other than that, they are awesome fish. I've had a wide variety of fish in general and it's still my wife's favorite. They are often found to have dog like personalities. Greet you when you arrive home and are most often quite friendly. They warm up quickly within a home aquarium.

I've kept quite a few triggers with no issues of nipping at corals. Here's the list:

Clown, Indicus, Niger and Pink Tail Triggers.