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mountaintoppufferkeeper

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Everything posted by mountaintoppufferkeeper

  1. A group of duboisi puffer to grow out and try to spawn... though the group of cross rivers have kind of taken that slot for the moment
  2. That looks amazing. I hatch in the ring and use that to contain the fry with the food for the first few weeks or more. Initial days.... plants in ring More advanced... still in ring i waited until they were eating grindal worms and trying the bigger whiteworms to release my last batch into the 20 gallon / 75 liter. If i keep them full to brineshrimp and grindal worm size, which is generally at a few weeks old, they seem to all make it
  3. Yeah that gives just about all puffer possibilities and a few extras i do love some google lens. Those paos are tough to determine. I may try one of the researchers off of a google scholar paper to see if they have any insights....particularly on wildcard 1
  4. I tend to run a large amount of live plants in my puffer tanks to help keep the water cleaner and grow that infusoria and other small foods. Yes the color change polyfilter . I cut it into small cubes and judge the water quality visually. For me it is just a little insurance between water changes. I am mostly using it for Organic Wastes: which it absorbs as itchanges to light tan and progresses to dark brown. For me it has been extremely helpful. I probably change 25% of the main tank water a week and use airline to siphon out any excess debris in the ring as needed daily being careful to avoid the puffer fry . If my polyfilter changes color too fast would try 25% ever 3 days here. I do not want too much fluctuation in the parameters especially in their first few weeks of growth
  5. I have probably added pao abei to the fishroom. I have not kept the species before this but may have a few different species to identify. I may have an idea on most but id like any suggestions and guidance as applicable on confirming my initial identifications: Group #1. Sold while fairly small Pao abei from a farm in SE asia they are much more patterened over tan gravel than the black sand it covers. What is your guess for this group's species? Looks to be a male based of belly patterns and behaviors Look to be females in back corner Same puffers over the black sand Group #2. Also sold as Pao abei from a different source. What is your guess for this group's species? Wildcard #1. Came In with group 2 above. the cheek pattern and the diamond marking on the forhead are not quite the same as the group. The mouth to me is a little more ambush puffer than the group looks. This puffer was also sold as P.abei. What is your guess for this puffer's species? Wildcard #2 has the look and feel of a young P.suvattii (arrowhead) to me ...also sold as an ....abei. the forhead arrow marking, the cheek line markings, along with a more upturned mouth brought me to arrowhead. What is your guess for this puffer'd species? No id needed F1 congo fry and whiteworms And for fun Pao leiurus courtship T.Pustulatus going full camera pose
  6. thanks for the mention @DaveO. @DanielBlub i like to use a floating ring like you have in a bigger tank to keep the water quality up between water changes, I use polyfilter cubes, that change color based off of what they absorb, to see how the water is doing daily. I dont think I can feed enough paramecium to grow large numbers of spotted congo fry past 5 days but i do think I can make enough infusoria and paramecium to feed them for the firat 14 days. I feed the baby puffers paranecium 2-3 times a day and feed infusoria at the same time. That seems to keep the food around the puffer fry longer especially if my light source is somewhat concentrated on the sides of the ring. I squeeze out a sponge filter from the adult puffer tank into a glass jar to start my infusoria culture. Grindal worms have also been helpful i culture those on scrubber pads and dog kibble. I feed the larger fry whiteworms i also grow on scrubber pads and kibble.
  7. Intersting anything like a sharp edge in or around the cave ?
  8. To me it seems closer to an abcess / pimple like deal on the skin which one of my hairys had in the past about 2 years into living here. It just appeared in day lasted a couple of weeks and eventually just "self cleansed" He never stopped eating, this never occured in the others olin the colony and never came back on this puffer. The between puffer nibbles are more like the circles on the belly of the male palustris here The circles can also be seen below. He is the darker pao palustris puffer. This is the same male as above just in the spawning dress I generally just observe for changes to the mark or behavior of the puffer.
  9. Yeah those are handy. They are an older design of boxfilter I run. Air driven and able to hold plenty of whatever media is needed. That uplift tube is a bit of a hotrod modification to increase the flow. Im running 3 of them with sera media and polyfill floss In the 270 ....and 4 sicce 900 pros with 2 extra chambers of sponge.
  10. Yeah nothing to major they do get fired up for food mostly. Then they feast and find a nice a nice spot to grow.... and repeat tomorrow
  11. I kept forgetting it was an option on the phone. Ill work on better ines in the future
  12. They do not seem to mess with clams much for me (the shell is untouched in the clip below), they prefer snails: mysterys, trapdoors, ramshorns. I have also fed whole frozen krill to them. That helped disperse the food and limit the need for defending it. Id assume shrimp would work the same as krill. They are primarily are eating frozen thawed raw crayfish. I put one of around this size in 6 locations around the tank. They generally have locations they eat in and if i can break up the sight lines they just focus on the food and not defending it. I figured out the super slow mo setting on the samsung. There is a frozen raw crayfish behind the one planter and another to the left of the boxfilter. This is impossible to see at normal speeds but is a the general idea of how they defend food against eachother. There have been less marks on their bodies than when they initially arrived so it may be more of a display like this was than using their mouths to sort it out. They do quite a bit of posturing and tail fanning. My intention is to get a pair or trio still but all four seem to be going well.
  13. It is certainly going to be an adventure and learning process with them. They are a whole different puffer when feeding or hunting food vs the rest of the time. I am cautiously optomistic about the project and am learning more about their behaviors and patterns each day I have with them. ********** 9 October 23 Update More easyplanters are still on the way for addition into the "cross river pond" this week. My plan is to create four feeding stations spread across the tank using a few easyplanters each. The feeding stations will use plants to limit the ability for the puffers to see each other while eating at any station. My goal is to condition them to feed at their prefered "feeding station" locations so I can limit the need to defend their food against each other. Two have already claimed the front corners of the tank and Two have claimed the back corners. All my puffer colonys (Pao palustris, P.baileyi, the spotted congos, and to some extent the P.abei) have had some similarity to the Tetraodon pustulatus behaviors while sorting out their spots in their colony. Based off those experiences and the currently observed behaviors with the cross rivers I still believe its got a shot at working out as they mature. I have caught two sleeping next to eachother a few times this first month
  14. ....aspiring puffer guru lol. But it would be cool if I broke the cross river breeding and raising fry code.
  15. 8 october 23 : Today we tried the first frozen thawed raw "bait" crayfish today. We are still learning how to eat this food item but they are fans it seems. The hope is to have this food be in regular rotation as they grow. A still of the first taste of crayfish here. These four cross rivers are very food defensive. My current strategy, to limit their need to defend food against each other, is to position even more coop planters and plants so that each member has a sheltered location to eat frozen meals which is blocked from the view of the other four "feeding stations" across the 270 gallon.
  16. This evening: two of the four Tetraodon pustulatus cross river puffers. 4 of 8 extra large amazon swords added to the coop easy planters 4 still floating. If these puffers arent full they are looking for food any time they see me. Small fish are limia vittata who serve as their "clean up crew"
  17. thanks for the heads up @nabokovfan87 @Vanessa K congratulations on the spotted congo puffer colony. I can only speak to my personal experience and process. For my puffer acclimation I generally do temperature acclimation by floating puffers in their bags for 30-45 minutes with the lights off, especially when they travel for a while I dose the tsnk with water conditioner then just cut the bags open and release them, water and all, after the temperature acclimation.I leave the lights off the first couple of hours after release. My preference is to have a bunch of snails in the tanks so they can start eating at their own pace once settled. I do offer food after the lights are turned back on as well; generally puffers are quick to adjust and be ready for food in my tanks. I do not worry about parameter acclimation personally and am more concerned about the ammonia spike risk in the bag water once I expose it to air. I defer to those that use it for their processes for specifics on how to do that method. In the distant past I have rarely cut open the bag at the top and add the tank water to the bags a cup at a time every 5 minutes for about 15 or 20 minutes before release into the tank. But I have found that unncessary for my new arrivals. I do treat the tank with a water conditioner when they arrive with Fritz A.C.C.R and use live plants. I worry less about any ammonia spike issues in my situation due the dillution of the bag water into the main tank volume of water, the live plants, and the conditioner that neutralizes any ammonia which is present. A single 1/8th inch (3.18 mm) long mekong puffer fry once inflated in a net and get air stuck. That batch had 1 of 300 to do that.... rare but possible. That puffer was a around this size (an earlier batch). It was my one experience of a puffer fry inflating with air and it being an issue. This is a Pao palustris mekong river puffer F1 fry. The light smudges are baby brine shrimp I believe, based of my own learning experiences, that older puffers have less trouble expelling air than younger fry. for my comfort I avoid the risk personally and accept the risk of adding a small amount of bag water to the tank. I keep them all under water when they arrive its a personal preference Spotted congos displaying Spotted congo fry growth up here Congrats on the new puffers I look forward to any forum updates of their progress.
  18. Fed the aquahuna purchased algae shrimp ....some extreme algae flake I got from the coop. As suggested on the forum this is an attempt at a polyculture with neocaradina in the floating german breeding ring abive. The spotted congo fry. The intent to have shrimplets for baby puffers when the sizes work out One of the F1 spotted congo fry. Still growing just the 4. Post puffer room reset the adult spotted congo group hasnt yet thrown eggs into my collector. Big fan of sitting on the leaves next to a shrimp that left the breeding ring Another of the four f1 fry. They like tiny snails and whiteworms currently And the four cross rivers got a billiondy'ish 🙂 earthworms tonight
  19. Managed to get decent photos of 2 of the 4 cross river puffers. They are a pretty cool interactive species. This has been the hardest project so far but they are beginning to find their calm with eachother. Lots of plants, lots of food, lots of space, and even more plants and coop planters Less decent of the other 2
  20. @Fresh Princess Cool congrats. The Ziss box is safe for the sterbai and puffers i have hatched in them. It is a very fine mesh (0.7 millimeter = 0.0276" = 22 gauge) sterbai eggs are typically laid at 2mm so way larger than the mesh and the fry here have been bigger than that once they hatch out I have done the ziss most often for sterbai. I generally roll the eggs onto the plastic portions of the inside of the box so that other fish do not try and eat them through the mesh. The mesh is small enough that puffer fry dont get out maybe a little bigger than a new hached baby brineshrimp. ThIs is a breeding ring but same idea. I will feed in the ziss or ring until i think they are ready to be released. The ziss has great flow ive hatched a high percentage of sterbai eggs just with that. I also have used the specimine container and 2 drops of methelyne blue i will hang it inside the tank to keep temperature if i do that method and start changing water as soon as hatching begins I am a big fan of java moss in the breeder box for cover and some micro food options for the fry
  21. 1 point for each aquarium you currently have running.14 1/2 point for each aquarium that you have empty "just in case". 2 1 point for every 40 gallons of water currently in your tanks. 20 1 point for each variety of prepared food you regularly feed. 5 2 points for each variety of frozen food your regularly feed. 10 3 points for each variety of live food you regularly feed. 15 2 points for each variety of water you regularly use in your aquariums/fish room that require some kind of preparation other than dechlorination (e.g., RODI, brackish, salt, hard water for African cichlids) 1 point for each tank with CO2 1 additional point for each tank where CO2 is regulated (i.e., not yeast-based or chemical generator) 1 point for each species of fish you have raised to maturity.8 1 point for each "grow out tank" you keep 7 1 point for each species-only tank you keep.6 1 point for each 100 comments posted on this Aquarium Coop Forum. 1 point for each cycled filter you have on hand, just in case. 6 1 point for each aquarium you have built yourself. 12(repurposed drilled and did bulkheads) 1 point for each aquarium stand you have built.12 5 points if you have a multi-tank auto-water change system. 5 points if you have a air supply "loop" for many tanks. 10 points if you have structurally modified your home to accommodate your fish tanks. 10 points if you been collecting in the wild. 1 point for each city you've been to and visited the LFS as a tourist activity.10 1 point for each $100 you've sold of fish in the last year. 2 2 points if you regularly attend a fish club auction. Award yourself one point for taking this quiz. 1 ...... 130 ish without the comments points. Nermish i suppose lol Unless i missed it Id say an add could be 1 point per live plant 10 points if you have made on coop order 15 if you subscribe to the youtube channel
  22. Day 12 Still need more plants but have added 18 coop plants plus something like 20 from other tanks to this "pond" All four cross rivers have posed tonight a bit. They ate pretty well yesterday. Their demeanor is more like fsirly interactive bull sharks in my set up. They rexognize me but when not full they are a little "sassy" and when hungry and food arrives they will chase and defend their meal. So far the plants work well and we have figured out our spots in the colony dynamic. I even caught two sleeping next to eaxh other this early am (no photo unfortunately)
  23. I personally do pond snails, ramshorn snails, new hatched mystery snails, trumpet snails, and cherry shrimp culls for my spotted congos and other species. If its the right size it is eligible for feeding. I havent noticed a pain issue with trumpet snails but all the puffers ive had will use different tactics on mts or bigger snails vs right sized or thin shelled snails. They will normally go for the trumpet snail while its moving. If the shell isnt worth their effort and they can just go for the snail when its out and moving..... mine will pick the easy button. They also do that to ramshorns and mysterys if the shell diameter is too big for their mouth. Earthworms, whiteworms, frozen bloodworms, and small dubia roaches are also rotated into feeding schedules fpr them up here.
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