Tetraodon schoutedeni, Spotted Congo Puffer Breeding Project

[ArsenalOfColor]

Late July, I acquired a group of 4 individuals with a good idea that at least one was female and one was male. Turns out I'm fairly confident that I have two females and two males.

Video of first day after hatch: https://imgur.com/gapeF6Q

 

 

They begun breeding behavior within a week of being in this 75g that is stuffed well with driftwood. I completely screwed up the first batch of eggs I got. They continued to show breeding behavior and I'm sure I missed some batches of eggs but on Oct 2nd I pulled several hundred eggs from the tank, carefully sifted through the mulm pulling out viable eggs. I then placed them in the breeder box with Methylene Blue, most breeders say the eggs hatch in about 5 days, mine took 7-8 to hatch. The eggs became an amber color as the fry developed in the egg. At 5 days I WCed until all the MB was gone. Most hatched two days after that.

 

As of today the fry are roughly 4 days old. I have lot of work a head of me but it seems like the green water culture out side that I have is plenty of food for them. Currently I am harvesting the water, running it through a baby brine shrimp sieve to pull out any undesirable or inedible stuff then feeding that. I'm also removing tank water from a VERY dirty pleco tank straining that and adding it to the green water in hopes of building up the paramecium count in the green water before adding.

 

I've got small cyst baby brine shrimp, going to try that out this weekend and see if they are large enough for it yet. Paramecium get 400um and these BBS supposedly hatch at 450um. So assuming that the puffers are large enough to eat big paramecium they should be able to eat the smallest of bbs.

 

Video of them eating micro organisms: https://imgur.com/gallery/7LOko3w

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by ArsenalOfColor
adding video hopefully

[Colu]

Hav many fry do you think you have got

[ArsenalOfColor]

On 10/14/2021 at 3:45 PM, Colu said:

Hav many fry do you think you have got

Somewhere around 100 at least!

[Colu]

I didn't think puffers were that prolific 

[ArsenalOfColor]

On 10/14/2021 at 3:50 PM, Colu said:

I didn't think puffers were that prolific 

Quite, there's no parental care after hatching so they egg scatter some where around a thousand eggs by the estimates I've heard from Preston John

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

Congratulations. It is interesting to see the different puffer breeding behaviors between the cave spawners and the scatterers

[ArsenalOfColor]

On 10/17/2021 at 10:55 AM, mountaintoppufferkeeper said:

Congratulations. It is interesting to see the different puffer breeding behaviors between the cave spawners and the scatterers

I saw your Mekong breeding thread, seems like you have quite an exciting adventure on your hands! Do the Mekongs hatch at an incredibly small size like the SCPs do?

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

On 10/17/2021 at 10:15 AM, ArsenalOfColor said:

I saw your Mekong breeding thread, seems like you have quite an exciting adventure on your hands! Do the Mekongs hatch at an incredibly small size like the SCPs do?

They do. My first photos of the mekong fry are at 3 days old. I was observing the tank and waiting for the first batch to hatch out and see what the male did with fry if anything; I noticed what I can best describe as a speck of puffer fry swimming around then another then 10 specks of puffer 3 days after the eggs vanished from the cave. The Pao can take live baby brine at 3 days if that helps size wise. I have obtained and now have reliable cultures of whiteworms, daphnia, blackworms, and peanut beetle larvae to go with live brine, "pest" snails, and mystery snails for foods.