mountaintoppufferkeeper

@Patrick_G funny thing is that wasn't that long ago and was pre Pao palustris acquisition. That visit and the Fahaka I sent with Trent opened that tank up for one of the more interesting projects this year. Time flies.

Im generally a fan of multiple fish of a species as a disclaimer to my list 🙂. 10 years is a fairly long time and would likely have a few tank adjustments and resets as you evolve how you most enjoy it. I would personally use live plants to help stabilize parameters a bit, filter, and break up sight lines My list of options i would consider by themselves in a flex 9. 1 to 3 pea puffer that might end up with 1 pea puffer but id try it with enough sight breaks. Pencilfish group (pretty much all of them) Clown killifish group Smaller mouthbrooding betta trios: B.albimarginata or B.channoides African Butterfly Cichlid Pygmy sunfish Cory ideas:

@James BlackThat made me want to go look up the choices you list which I didn't select. I also wonder what the "others" are. COOP was the first for me (3 or 4 ish Cory fish room versions ago) and I went out into the COOP adjacent channels as well at some point. That the majority of the fish tube for me. I got hooked on Weldon Tanks and even did my first room tour with him as an eventual result of Cory suggesting him way back when either on a livestream or in a video ( 2019 Ziss bubble bio filter review era maybe?). Funny thing is that one suggestion years ago got me even deeper in the hobby and led me to a bigger circle to exist in; plus we have this forum now which is amazing. Crazy to think that one moment in a livestream could evolve to today where I share texts and essentially "phone a friend " calls on fish questions, with a handful of hobby friends I only had the chance to meet as a direct result of that suggestion.

I find all plants interesting to have in my attempted ecosystems. I have had frogbit melt to nothing in one tank and choke off the surface in the another tank with the same water and similar stocking and feeding schedules. 🤷‍♂️

2 plants to try, 1 or 2 smallest available containers of food, and whatever miscellaneous stuff caused the order in the first place: repashy, scissors, easy green, root tabs, meds, breeder boxes, egg tumblers, hatchers, planters, airline, etc

@tnnlynch I trade / offset some costs with it at times. Normally I just toss the extra similar to the used box filter floss. My floating plants are primarily used to filter and indicate the health of my water as well as provide a bit of cover; I view removing the excess as a part of keeping the frogbit remaining colony healthy; being tossed is a better option to me than choking out the air exchange or the rest of the frogbit by limiting nutrients to each plant. My set ups get thinned back to 1/4th of the surface when it gets to 1/2 coverage of the surface of the tank.

@Keeg I have three id say 1. Same as yours essentially: Talking about a project too early can cause breeding to not occur or causing fry to not develop. 2. Do not move the puffer cave to check on eggs because it "causes" extra fighting. 3. If adults of any species do not breed within a month of arrival up here they will not breed at 9,100' in altitude.

Nuce to meet you

@Nick H.To me his belly looks rounded and he seems like a happy puffer off the photo. Have you seen any empty or crushed up snail shells? I might try frozen krill, bits of human grade frozen shrimp, or the bloodworm with vitachem for the vitamin benefits. that vitachem stuff is like puffer candy. My fahaka now a friends with a bigger tank, loved ramshorn snails but wouldnt touch MTS, also loved cherry shrimp until one day he didnt, and occasionally ate frozen krill with vitachem. He was very particular of a feeder. I would try and watch longer during feeding or maybe place theflake and pellet in an easy to see spot to get the snails that he should be eating in a visable location. If the puffer is hungry it would eat the snails baited to the food right in front of you in most instances. from the photo angle it really looks to be food in that belly to me.

@DSH OUTDOORS LOL. Sorry about that yes just one more tank should be finewhich has now got me settimg up a second rack system :). Im assuming the eye spot is for predator confusion alomg with their extremely fast speed bursts from that puffer tail its probably an excellent combo. Very neat to see the drastically different pattern between the fry with the red spot eye spots, the parents with no red at all, and the adult male darker pattern and different head shape vs the females.

Day 17. Interesting that the fry have that "target"on their sides but the adults do not. Looking forward to seeing when the adult coloration comes in and what mix of genders we have in the 3 growing puffers from this batch

@Griznatch I share that fish keeping philosophy as well. Getting spawning out of the groups of different fish is more of my indicator of happy healthy systems than anything else. Though when the palustris fry were exercising their tiny puffer muscles for the first time the other day that was probably the coolest thing I have ever watched in a fish tank. That even beats me possibly capturing one of if not the first documented spawnings of palustris and maybe the first 17 days of captive born fry here on the forum. I do enjoy participating in BAP for the Colorado Aquarium Society, the American Livebearers Association, and hopefully a COOP online BAP eventually. Beyond the knowledge obtained in keeping the species that results in successful fry and successive generations of fry it would be fun to have some "fish flair" to hang by the tanks in the fishroom as I progress into in depth knowledge of more species and their behaviors. That said .... I will be next level pumped when my Hairy puffer bonded pair produce their first fry. At this point I think we can all agree they are clearly messing with me. 🙂 I am very interested to document the differences between breeding and raising the two pao species I currently keep (P. baileyi and P.palustris) through successive the generations if and when I get them to that point. I am one day closer to either finding the right formula for baileyi fry or not breaking that code and just enjoying my pair for years to come. Fun tank to learn from them each day regardless of the fry outcome.

I may try that one next spawn. After further review of the wyze cam being used for puffer watch.... the female left the cave at 558 local time this morning and the male dropped is coloration to normal at 731 am. I assume the fry left the cave between those two times. The male was looking for krill to be served just now and happily got himself a belly full with the 5 adult females; no fry noted on the check just now in the cave so we have 2 weeks to prep for the next batch and I would think 4 days of watching the tank for fry to appear from this round. I will shoot for pulling at 48 hours after cave guarding is observed next time to try and catch them in a more condensed fry group.

@Beardedbillygoat1975 Gianne’s talk got me thinking about betta projects as well. I expect the third Saturday of every month will add to my projects moving forward; I expect to be similarly improving my corydoras efforts, aquascaping, adding a mormyrids colony, and working with rare east african cichlids starting on the 3rd Sunday of the next 4 months 🙂. I am likely going to try some smaller mouthbrooders in a tank with the catfish tank just because it gets low 60s for unheated tanks in the house in winter here; I believe its because of the thinner air not retaining heat somehow because the house itself is comfortable. 1) I currently breed in polycarbonate food totes basically like deans fry rack containers but the larger version used in restaurant soup and vegetable storage. I have done the Betta Macrostoma "Brunei Beauty" Mouthbrooder in a 40 breeder with tons of plants a while ago though fairly unintentional I did get some fry out of them with nothing special done tannin wise. I would run betta in anything you like / have in terms of glass or plastic but would expect that clear square containers maybe be better for photographs if that is a consideration. 2) I would personally keep the options open and run pure wild and cross lines to have the most enjoyment out of trying crossing and developing a line of those crosses on my own 3) I have no idea where to get the quality ones but purchased the macrostoma online through a retailer who occasionally posts to aquabid. Aquahuna has a pretty nice livestream of betta now where you order the splendens you like the most and they walk over and pull it.

@lefty o imported fancy maggots. Interesting that they are the number one selling bait and are used for fish people often consume themselves. Must be good stuff with the right food on the fly egg end

@Beardedbillygoat1975 I do have some spares of my high end 59 cent custom caves and the probably 50 cent custom cut slate tile floor so that is definitely an option 🙂 . The puffers are pretty good problem solvers and crazy observant I would bet they would know if both were out of the cave and I swapped it out. The puffers are the only ones I have kept so far who, in my opinion, recognize me as their person, know when I'm going to the food freezer, and how to let me know they wouldn't mind some food. The only species that are basically aquatic dogs who are excited to see me, happy to be up top wagging their tails if I am away for too long, and the only ones in the fishroom who both enjoy the attention and also pay attention to what I am doing away from their tank.

Thank you. Yes that first batch of now 3 thriving fry are at 17 days old this morning. I'm still working on if the adults are a bonded pair or if the females are rotating out; 2 weeks seems very fast for a 2nd batch from the same female. At least the adults are all eating for the whole time with the male and the female in the cave are swapping out for food and security operations. I am nearly positive he has 5 females with him in the 75 gallon so I lucked out there with getting a male in the initial wild caught stock. I have been taking daily notes, videos, and photos of everything for reference. LOL. Maybe P.palustris will be the first step to the unexpected but somewhat attempted mountain top puffer hobby empire and not the hairy puffers I started the puffer breeding path with. I suppose with more fry each to start more fry will make it; I am looking forward documenting how I improve my process if I am lucky enough to get more batches.

@lefty o I have tried to peek a bit but they have definitely outsmarted the light option. Whatever is in there is against that left wall. The male's puffer brain is fairly fascinating to see in action when he gives me that look of "we have this covered" from inside the shack. I am basing the presence of eggs or fry purely on the behaviors of both compared to their established standards and their changes to spawning colors.

@Biotope Biologist yes with an * here as well. @Fish FolkIt wouldn't make you many friends but I bet its possible to toss some meat in a clean bucket and get plenty of maggots with known provenance if so inclined. I don't think I could do it here, pretty sure that would be the biggest Mrs Mountaintop veto possible on that one.

I realize that I may be pathfinding a bit on the puffer breeding of the Pao puffers but we have a few well versed in the habits of cave spawners of other species cichlids especially seem applicable. The Mekong Puffer adult pair have been in his former bachelor pad and in breeding coloration for 4 days now. Its killing me to not check but also do not want to frighten either and risk them eating fry. Talk me down .... its the right thing to just wait for tiny puffer fry to emerge vs letting my curiosity kill the puffer fry and burn the spawning site ? This is this morning the male returning from a patrol of the area and displaying to the female inside along with a few photos of the female in her spawning colors

@Fish FolkId give it a shot from my barrel there hasn't been a chemical in our trash bin since we swapped to the local company in 2019. I wouldn't go searching street barrels though 🙂 . I would assume nearly all fish will eat maggots if they come across them in the wild but I would probably test each batch of "appropriated from the wild foods" out on a cull tank to see how it went before I tossed them in to any of my breeding projects. An extra level of insulation from risks cant hurt. Raising clean larvae/maggots is essentially what I am now doing with the peanut beetle larvae. I just got them going so not many larvae yet. They have been EXTREMELY popular with the limited amount of consumers I have surveyed in the fishroom ( African Butterflyfish group and multicolor victorae mouthbrooders).

Mostly do purchase online. It is that driving back home from a physical store that really adds up :). Same here for the scenery being worth the distance. My LFS is a a combination of COOP for dry goods and supplies, aquahuna when I find it there and occasionally aquabid etc for livestock. My main club and fish community is here. You can't beat our neighbors. As the saying goes good fences make for good neighbors..... in our case hundreds of trees and a quarter mile of distance between the next closest home makes for great neighbors. We see more animals than people here : deer, turkey, eagles, vultures, foxes, elk, an occasional black bear, coyote, owl, and arguably either a couple of grey wolf or two enourmous coyotes seen over the years.... but they claim wolves dont officially exist here. 🤷‍♂️ seemed very wolf like size and shape vs the coyotes we have seen around to us.

Bummer. Sorry about that. I had that same issue with the hose before. Forgot to put an inlet 1/4 inch tube into a rack tank. Man that wasalot of water. Hopefully you caught it fairly quickly. I use the polycarbonate containers and bulkheads pretty extensively at the moment hose clamps, tight bulkhead seals, and wide open overflows are the three rules for me now

Nice to meet you. Im also no where near a LFS up here on the mountain in Colorado. Not ever a chain store within a 2 hour round trip for me.

Welcome. Nice to meet you