mountaintoppufferkeeper

Those are nice loaches there. This is the about 6 inch deep mat that the coop pennywort llikes to grows into in my tanks. This one is within my limia vitatta / snail 40 breeder"ranch". Its pretty much like that every 2 weeks. Great plant.

Especially those green mixes ..quite fragrant

I successfully captured some fired up patterning in the Krobia xinguensis colony. They are going to be really impressive once the get closer to adult size and coloration.

The system of paramecium and rotifers/copepods seems to be working . Its hard to appreciate the size of these fry. Everything you see in this photo is microscopic. The balls moving across the bottom are seed shrimp i believe

@TishWish greetings from Divide Colorado a short 2,140 kilometers to your south/south-west. Nice to meet you. Electric Blue Acara babies ...awesome! congrats on raising those. That google map of Red Lake Ontario makes me understand the shipping delays. I bet those winters are WINTERS up there. Im sure its already in the thread. If im doing a video I either make a GIF from the bigger video and post here or post the video to youtube and paste the link to it here.

I never did try them with schooling fish but 12+ congo tetras with them in a larger display tank were my plan for after I broke the code on breeding and rearing them. My temproary combination with them are visible in that night video.... Mud Fish: Phractolaemus ansorgii and baby dolphin morymid: Brevimyrus niger. Both of those groups were eventually moved to species tanks. I just try whatever I think is the most enjoyable fish combo for me and see what happens these days. I have had pretty good results with frogbit and brazilian pennywort here. I use a light, "puffer contributions", and easy green to grow everything here. My pennywort becomes a 6" deep thick floating mat here. I just cut and transplant to different tanks or share it etc. if its too much. Ropefish could be a fun combination. I imagine they would also be fans of a floating mat of pennywort. Thats a pretty awesome tank already. looking forward to any updates.

@TheSwissAquarist no but they had me at pufferfish of course 🙂

Interesting. I wonder if that might be occuring at night. I had a group which were casualties of a spring snow storm power outage up here. I did get some interesting IR camera footage while they were enjoying life on the mountain. Im guessing at sime point there was spawning because this was non stop overnight and everynight with a mix of males and females in the group. And a few feeding A few more in the below link. I do enjoy the scholar side of google from time to time. Lots of research and peer reviewed journal articles out there for many species. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C6&q=Pantodon+buchholzi&btnG=

Congrats @Jack CO this research on them from the Journal of Applied Sciences and Environmental Management 23 (7), 1273-1277, 2019 is an interesting read. The fry could be a challenge to raise but who doesnt like a good challenge. Aspects of the Biology and culture of the butterfly fish, Pantodon buchholzi; A potential aquarium fish in Nigeria: https://www.ajol.info/index.php/jasem/article/view/188759

The use of copepods and rotifers to back up paramecium seems to be working. I am feeding a large volume of paramecium twice per day and use the copepods/rotifers mix of various sizes to sustain them between feedings on this learning experience. I siphon 5 seconds through an airline tube out of the copepod culture into a rotifer sieve. I then rinse the copepods rotifers and whatever else is the sieve with tank water into a container and then feed that into the german breeding ring housing the puffer fry. There is hopefully enough food in the ring of various sizes to try and provide unlimited opportunity to feed daily and also to try and document the feeding preference progression as they grow. Im pretty sure this one was giving that deal of equal size a try.... That fry ought to do just fine if thats the case. The faint barely visible white lines are likely the paramecium due to the level of zoom this required. The white rice grain looking things are in the copepod mix culture. My idea is that the extra food either makes it out of the ring and into the 40 breeder or the puffers eventually eat it one way or another. I feed a ton of extra paramecium to make sure the puffers get enough and to potentially feed the copepods who then feed the bigger puffer fry (in theory anyway). The spotted congo puffer fry all day buffet style of feeding strategy

At the very least they are feeding on newly hatched copepods at the moment. That dart up to the left is always fun to capture

I pulled5 spotted congo fry from the first version of my auto egg harvester german breeding ring combo when i was resetting it today. I decided to add in paramecium and a few syringes from the copepod tank to the initial grow out ring i moved them to. Hopefully some of the food in there suits them and they get to growing quickly. There is a selection of snacks to pick from now. The ring that is attached to the harvester. For scale the nylon mesh on the bottom is 153 microns (0.00602 of an inch)...ao we have a ways to go

Ive added 2 new cultures to the fishroom to use along side the 2 quart mason jar cultures of paramecium. The goal is to get the puffer fry to bbs size and move to worms and snails eventually. First add: 20H tank room temperature with a few hours of direct sunlight depending on season. This is for sure seed shrimp and copepods of at least one type. There might be rotifers and moina in here as well. 2nd add Calyciforus pallas is be attempted in multiple 5 gallon buckets, and large mason jars to see which is best. Foods are the chlorella powder and other algaes while i figire out the best method for my setups. The cultures might fail spectacularly at aome point but im enjoying figuring out what is best for my fry up here in the mean time.

I decided to try and capture the 20H miscellaneous micro food cuture in a photo and gif. Seeded from a sponge filter and plants with whatever copepods and potentially rotifers i have in my tanks. Added moina weeks later (which i think failed at leas partially). I keep it about this green by feeding freshwater algae if it gets closer to clear. Light base of crushed coral to buffer. I can see seed shrimp/ostracods, and the copepod cyclopoida. There is all kinds of stuff in the photo. Im not sure what else is in there but seems like puffer fry food to me.

I decided to attempt rotifer culturing. In hopes to have more options of foods for fry. Today started me on my focused rotifer culture path for baby puffer foods. Test 1 is a 5 gallon bucket with chlorella in the water column. I guess ill see un 5 days or so if it works. Took a break from veggies and fed some pellets to the Kamp Krobia. Im curious to see my male to female split ends up. If I cant get a pair from this size group (which arrived as wild caught 1" fry) its not meant to be. We have a ways to go bit a really fun species so far. Mostly puffers here not completely puffers though :)

Id do the low lights low stress and observe personally. Meds can just add to system stress if its not a specific illness they are intended to be treating. Puffers are pretty tough they heal quickly. 4 days is not too long for going off food up here. If otherwise healthy i just keep observing and offering food as normal until they start eating again. I had a fahaka do that running into the glass when surprized years ago. That was followed by acting odd was probably related to "ringing its own bell" with a solid hit. I added plants on the ends and cleared out the middle of any obstructions or plants to identify the limits better similar to flags on an electric fence where its a visual cue of the stop point. Photos or video/gif might be useful in this case as well.

Soil-less worm experiment update. My attempts to culture whiteworms as I do grindal worms has been a decent success. I started with the grindal worm on scotchbrite pads. Current yield after rinse and re-kibble I started trying this same method with the bigger whiteworms months ago. Some on blue pads some on green pads. I rinse the pads and make sure there is a 1/4" of distilled water in the bottom to keep them hydrated during the week. That kibble is replaced every 3 days or so to give a general sense of the worm counts involved. Now im thinking....Could i do this with blackworms, tubifex, etc?

Id vote whitecloud as well. Bonus fish cant beat that

Looking forward to updates hopefully it settles in nicely

Id consider trying a divider in qt and see how it goes in a 29 after quarentine. If that was up here. My dividers are a lighting diffuser from a home improvement store i have hidden behind the bookshelf near the fishrokm. If i need one for a tank I just pull one out and cut the size if divider I need from that sheet. The full disclaimer to my limited experience is that Ive never figured out cories or other bottom dwellers with puffers personally. I also havent tried red eye red tails with any other fish becsuse of my intent to collect eggs once they spawn for me. Im sure its possible to do a red eye with other species without issue given the right individual puffer, cover, and large enough space.My guess is that puffer will just keep checking out cories and everything else on the bottom. he might find them less interesting in a larger space. The cories might also get a bit more aware and avoid the pointy end of him by using plant cover etc.in a larger area like a 29 etc.

I dont worry about the extras personally. The fish in the tank tend to utilize them

@Gannon I am of the try it out and see philosophy in my tanks. Puffers to me are fairly individual fish. I have not found two that have the same personality. Occasionally even an individual puffer will behave drastically different in one tank vs another for me. The give it a shot and have a backup plan has been the best result for me. I have had the most success with fast swimmers that are mid to upper water as puffer tankmates. The variatus species of platies have been most successful in puffer tanks for me and are generally able to self sustain in puffer tanks when i I have had the least success with bottom dwellers. i believe is a function of puffers eventually getting curious and tasting the bottom dweller or establishing a territory which includes the bottom and "encouraging" the intruder to not return. If its quick my species its not normally worth the effort from the puffer up here. If I add a puffer to a tank I try whatever combination I prefer first and observe for a few hours to decide if it is, at least initially, working. I do that knowing the puffer could decide everyone goes at some point in the future with little or no warning. ************************** My Red Eye Red Tailed Puffer Colony -Carinotetraodon irrubesco I have kept my current colony of 2 males 3 females in a heavily planted 40 breeder for a while now while they grow, aclimate to my fishroom conditions and schedules, and prep for breeding. I have not tried tankmates because I intend to collect eggs eventually. They are relatively peaceful for me. I expected the males to fight a bit but they live as a group peacefully for me. These 5 ignore snails for the the most part. They prefer bloodworms, earthworms, chunks of raw frozen shell on shrimp (Seafood dept at grocery store), frozen krill (petstore flat), and rarely frozen clams on the half shell ( generally I online order my frozen foods up here so the standard stuff at a shop). I use vitachem soak and a little garlic guard on foods. I view aggression as a relative term with puffers. There are certainly disagreements in this group of irrubesco. Its not too often of an occurance in the 40 breeder with sight breaks. I believe a dominant male will generally change to that striped camo pattern get a red stripe on their belly to displayan almost mock charge. I do not have that on video yet but they dont really get too crazy its more display than contact. Aggression My opinion is that aggression has been limited in slighrly bigger tanks. Spotted congos are normally known as the peaceful puffer. These two were in a 20 gallon for qt. this is aggression and required a divider. Both puffers would attack the divider in this tank in an effort to kill each other im sure. The below two are the above individuals in a tank with more space its basically a custom short 45 gallon breeder. The colony has 4 adults. 2 males 2 females and its this level of relaxed.

@Fish Folk Id second that but I have never tried tetra so no clue what those eggs look like . @mij They look like puffer eggs to me as well. I do methelyne blue and run a slow air bubble in a heated container ( i float in a tank normally Im a big easy button guy) To my novice eye the circled eggs are the look that have generally developed and hatched for me Pao palustris eggs for comparison clear good white bad I try and move the clear ones to another container and any that look white leave in the first container with mb and see what happens. They should develop and hatch really quick and be very small. Thats a spotted congo fry a few days old up here for a size comparison Breeding indicator visible for a few hours after on females here. @Preston John is the spotted congo expert i ask as well.

Thanks for the puffer guild signal @Beardedbillygoat1975. @Tnt fish I will update this one later tonight with a more in depth version..... my group is in a 40 breeder 2 males 3 females. They are getting a little "chippy" so possibly seasonal. My current understanding is they scatter very small into plants but the males do seem to claim portions of the tank bottom occasionally. Its possible there may be some paternal spawn site defense. I'd say these are full grown i feed earthworms,whiteworms, bloodworms, scuds, frozen clams on half shell, occasional krill, and snails. They arent real big on snail shells though. I have a clip on the forum of spotted congos trying to fight eachother in too small of a tank. There is something to be said for lots of space for puffers. The more space the less aggression for me. Update I checked some refefences on scholar.google.com ..... the Carinotetraodon irrubesco has been spawned in the past using a 5 gallon tank and a male female pair. After one year the spawned scattering 200 eggs were over caves,leaf litter, and plants. no parental care was observed and the fry hatch 3 days later under-developed and took 7 days to begin swimming and feeding. The parents were egg eaters in that setup. The fry were small enough that live rotifers are needed for the first 2 weeks of free swimming. baby brine is too large until around day 15 of swimming. My current plan is to move one male and 2 female into a 20 with subwassertang and see what happens.

Relocated my wild caught Krobia xinguensis grow out colony from a 40 breeder to this 60 breeder to see what happens. The group appears to be a bit male heavy but I think there might be a female or two in the colony. They are around 3" currently and eating anything I put in the tank. The smaller fish are some limia vittata fry I had in there to clean up prior to the krobia moving in