Figure 8 Puffer Babies?

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

Nice. I am unsure how brackish might impact parameters and change the process but my guess would be between days day 14 to 21 or 1/4 " is a good time to begin to decide who needs to move where and when. I do not like to move palustris much earlier than that to limit stress and reduce issues with feeding in the bigger tank

I like to leave my pao fry in breeder box for 14 days or 1/4" in length or so before I move them to a tank I want them well started and feeding on at least baby brine shrimp and possibly some grindal or whiteworms etc before they go to a grow out tank and have to really swim and actively hunt food. I have also found that the bigger the grow out group the more accepting of new foods they are and the more aggression is reduced across the puffers.

Two things I always do when moving are

1. I keep them under water for the move to avoid them puffing up with air and being unable to expel it. That is a rare issue but it can happen. 

2. I do not mix different spawns with different lengths together - the bigger ones will view the smaller puffers as a food source so I keep them in their original group with their similar sized siblings. 

 

I keep / have kept

thirteen 3" palustris adolescents in a 25 gallon currently with no issues 

one-hundred 1/8th" palustris in a breeder box growing out feeding 2 times a day of baby brine shrimp and vinegar eels

five 1.5" Tetraodon Miurus Congo Puffers growing out in a 30 gallon (18"x26"x15")

thirty 1/2" palustris were grown out in a 24 gallon (18"x26"x12") tank with no issues for me

I have shipped palustris before and I waited until they were around 3/4" to send them out they all made it no problem at that size

[Dancing Matt]

If we are trying to feed with infusoria would squeezing out a dirty sponge help/be comparable?

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

On 5/27/2022 at 2:47 PM, Dancing Matt said:

If we are trying to feed with infusoria would squeezing out a dirty sponge help/be comparable?

I believe that is a way to get a little "instant infursoria" based off some past forum threads buy a few of the experts on here. I normally use java moss from an established tank for a bit of infusoria as well as fry cover.

[Anttwon]

On 5/27/2022 at 10:16 PM, mountaintoppufferkeeper said:

I believe that is a way to get a little "instant infursoria" based off some past forum threads buy a few of the experts on here. I normally use java moss from an established tank for a bit of infusoria as well as fry cover.

Just curious if filters/Java moss in brackish tank would contain insuforia. Haven’t thought about it that much, just realizing every video I watched was all fresh water. 
I do have my snail tank I could pull the moss and filter from, but again just curious.

[Patrick_G]

On 5/28/2022 at 5:46 AM, Anttwon said:

Just curious if filters/Java moss in brackish tank would contain insuforia. Haven’t thought about it that much, just realizing every video I watched was all fresh water. 
I do have my snail tank I could pull the moss and filter from, but again just curious.

I was wondering the same thing. It’s worth a try. The micro critters only have to live long enough for the fry to eat them. 

[Anttwon]

Day 3 

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

@AnttwonGood looking fry there. They look ready for bbs whenever you have any hatched. 2 or 3 times a day works for my pao fry

Edited May 28, 2022 by mountaintoppufferkeeper

[Anttwon]

Day 4: Unfortunately looks like we lost all the fry overnight last night 😞 There are maybe 5 left in the parent tank. Feel like I was just lacking in the proper setup, and food…. Memorial Day weekend slowed all the shipments so I wouldn’t have gotten anything until this coming week anyways. Going to work on getting a setup going and ready so I’m 100% ready for the next batch.

[DaveO]

Aww, that's a bummer. Still, you gave it a good shot under the circumstances. I can't wait to see if they spawn again. Good luck. 

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

On 5/29/2022 at 9:17 AM, Anttwon said:

Day 4: Unfortunately looks like we lost all the fry overnight last night 😞 There are maybe 5 left in the parent tank. Feel like I was just lacking in the proper setup, and food…. Memorial Day weekend slowed all the shipments so I wouldn’t have gotten anything until this coming week anyways. Going to work on getting a setup going and ready so I’m 100% ready for the next 

Bummer. 5 in the parent tank is pretty good still. You'll be able to build off this run and have more batches in no time. Once they start making fry my bet is they are like the pao puffers and dont stop. 

Looking forward to learning about the figure 8 through your experiences. 

[Patrick_G]

Sorry about the loss of the fry. Hopefully the remaining ones in the parent tank will survive. 

[Brian]

Oh boy….  Sorry 

we’ll live and learn.   I’m sure you will get them to spawn again 

[Anttwon]

Round 2! This time I’m prepared so let’s see how it goes! @mountaintoppufferkeeper how long after your puffers lay the eggs do they hatch? This batch was laid upfront of the tank, so I know for a fact they were laid between 8-4 today and were already hatching by 4.. pretty exited once again 😁

Edited June 21, 2022 by Anttwon

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

@Anttwon So cool. Congrats again!! Id guess the hatching timelime js different from the pao species based off that. Id assume similar to the pao they will be around 48 hours until the finish the yolk sac and start thinking about food. 

The mekongs its more of a look thing. Once i see those eyes its pretty quick. I have noticed that they will hatch over the course of 2 days or so in my set ups. 

When I pull from the male I wait around 48-72 hours or so from the time i note the eggs in the cave or from whenever the eggs to darken up if i missed them being laid. I let him to do all the work of fanning and removing bad ones for me. 

 

[Anttwon]

So I was on my way to diner when I put that last post up, there was maybe 5 - 20 floating babies in the tank. We got back about 8pm and all the eggs are hatched with babies, tons of babies swimming about. I, myself have never seen or heard of a fish laying eggs that hatch within hours, or even same day for that matter.

I have dispersed about 10-20 per tank through my tanks to "experiment" I guess. Some fresh, some brackish, some harder water some softer water. Really interested to see what works. All the fry have been moving in the tanks for close to an hour, will keep close eyes on all of them.

One difference I have noticed about this time as opposed to last time, the smaller darker parent puffer is eating them, the larger brighter parent hasn't taken any interest. I brought up the looks to the puffers because I really want to know which is producing the eggs, I had to have missed it today by no more than 2 hours. I have an arlo security cam I used to use to put out to watch packages. Based on the time between when they spawned last and when they spawned this time was about 3 weeks, so about 2 weeks from now I will set it up on the tank so I can catch the egg laying on camera. The differences in these two figure 8's from size, color, and aggressiveness is very drastic, and finding out who's the egg holder may give a lot of insight into sexing them and things of that nature.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Anttwon

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

Your results will be great to hear about. Thats pretty interesting with the short hatch time. I bet they eat quicker than the pao as well. They are a bit of a bottomless pit when growing. They easily eat 1 or 2 times their weight a day for me up here. Huge food bellies then a few hours to normal size bellies and repeat. 

I am a fan of the "puffer cam" i have used the 24/7 video camera on tanks for a bit. You can often set a motion detection zone to get alerts and then go back and check and through the full video on the SD card. 

This is from a wyze cam and shows one of the female pao cf palustris displaying to the male in the cave just before spawning. My motion zone was just the cave and the grey rock to the right of it. That zone allowed me to only check the activity where they were spawing and skip the stuff outside of that area.

The breeder box top left holds a batch of fry from a few weeks prior. The smaller fish in the background is one of the cull platies I used to tidy up the place from the puffers eating. The camera I have is harder to get close up detail on but is good enough to see what is happening with the adults. It was only about 3 feet away for this recording. 

It would be interesting to see the differences between the two once determined. This is an awesome thread. 

[BeeD]

I am in awe of this. I have been contemplating a Figure 8 tank for a long time, which is half the reason I tested out a little brackish tank. Is that duckweed or bubbles? Brackish duckweed?