Surprise schoutedenti spawn

[Snjchris]

My pair of spotted congo puffers spawned for me today. First spawn. The female was chasing the male away earlier whenever he tried to latch but I guess she was ready this time. 

I have never dealt with egg scatterers before. This one caught me off guard on how hard it is to collect the eggs. The eggs are also clear so they are hard to spot. I am thinking of getting some spawning mops to reduce the collection effort. Any tips on egg collection welcomed 🙂

I have stopped the heater in the tank for a few days now. The tank temperature fluctuates and earlier it was measuring at 75 - 76F. 50% water changes daily as there are a lot of plecos in the tank as well. Just posting it on here in case people are wondering about the parameters. 

I have had the female since March 2022 and the male for over a month. Both of them are from Coop. 

Bonus picture of them in the act during the live stream xD

Here are the eggs in a ziss egg tumbler. The mating ritual is still on going and has lasted over 2 hours. The female will spray eggs every 5 - 10 minutes or so.

Female: 

Male: 

Earlier failed attempts (the male chased the female for a day without success):

Edited July 19, 2022 by Snjchris

[Guppysnail]

Fantastic shots. Congratulations.  Very fitting Cory’s tv reflection in the glass 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@Preston Johnand @mountaintoppufferkeeperare the resident experts on puffer care. Congratulations on this accomplishment. I know from Preston's prior discussions the next step is getting small enough foods for them like infusoria so that they can get to the point where they can then eat things like BBS. Best of luck! Look forward to following. 

[Snjchris]

On 7/19/2022 at 10:00 AM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

@Preston Johnand @mountaintoppufferkeeperare the resident experts on puffer care. Congratulations on this accomplishment. I know from Preston's prior discussions the next step is getting small enough foods for them like infusoria so that they can get to the point where they can then eat things like BBS. Best of luck! Look forward to following. 

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction! I was reading some of their posts on the forum yesterday. I am going to try my best but this will be a long learning journey! 

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

Congrats first off and great shots there.

I defer to @Preston John on spotted congos one of these days I will try a colony myself. 

I can say Pao puffers are impressive with the amount of food and frequency they will eat while growing. Paos get to bbs at day 3 for me.  I use Java moss in a breeder box along with vinegar eels as my first foods then bbs, grindal worms, whiteworms, snails, 

Some good threads here :

https://forum.aquariumcoop.com/tags/spotted congo puffer/

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/19/2022 at 8:41 AM, Guppysnail said:

Fantastic shots. Congratulations.  Very fitting Cory’s tv reflection in the glass

was a stream about the new light 😉

 

 

On 7/18/2022 at 7:13 PM, Snjchris said:

This is the shot that surprised me the most.  Reminds be of other wounds I've seen on other ocean going fish from mating and just how damaging it could be if you do it wrong.  Crazy crazy stuff.  Very cool that you were able to capture it and record it so people who never would see something like this have the chance to do so.

[Snjchris]

On 7/19/2022 at 11:04 AM, mountaintoppufferkeeper said:

Congrats first off and great shots there.

I defer to @Preston John on spotted congos one of these days I will try a colony myself. 

I can say Pao puffers are impressive with the amount of food and frequency they will eat while growing. Paos get to bbs at day 3 for me.  I use Java moss in a breeder box along with vinegar eels as my first foods then bbs, grindal worms, whiteworms, snails, 

Some good threads here :

https://forum.aquariumcoop.com/tags/spotted congo puffer/

 

Thank you for sharing your Pao puffer setup! I am a bit curious to see how small the puffer fry are compared to ram fry. The eggs seem smaller compared to rams'. I made the mistake before with rams by putting free swimmers into ziss breeder box and they are so small that they will just swim through! Luckily I have a different kind of box now too.

Since this is my first try, I think I will split the eggs once they hatch into two batches and try different methods of raising them. If they hatch that is lol. There is quite a lot to trial and error 🙂

On 7/19/2022 at 11:19 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

was a stream about the new light 😉

 

 

This is the shot that surprised me the most.  Reminds be of other wounds I've seen on other ocean going fish from mating and just how damaging it could be if you do it wrong.  Crazy crazy stuff.  Very cool that you were able to capture it and record it so people who never would see something like this have the chance to do so.

Yes it looks very painful! Especially the male will violent shake to stimulate the female to spray her eggs. Sorry I don't have it on video as it was the best time for me to easily collect the eggs. 

The affair lasted 3 hours and there was a pinch mark on her belly at the end. This is her today. You can see a very faint mark (thankfully):

 

[Preston John]

@Snjchris  I don't know the size of German Ram eggs or fry, but @Dean’s Fishroom told me that the puffers are smaller. @Dean’s Fishroom Let me know if I'm remembering this wrong.

This image/graphic is to scale. 

 

 

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Preston John
Updated image with i.d.

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

 I would estimate the Pao are the size of 2 week old spotted congos based off this video from @Preston John

 

this journal is also pretty amazing stuff from @Jack.of.all.aquariums

 

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

You got me thinking about trying spotted congos now 😁

[Snjchris]

On 7/19/2022 at 1:58 PM, Preston John said:

@Snjchris  I don't know the size of German Ram eggs or fry, but @Dean’s Fishroom told me that the puffers are smaller. @Dean’s Fishroom Let me know if I'm remembering this wrong.

This image/graphic is to scale. 

 

 

 

Thank you for the image. It really brings things into perspective. I saw the video that @mountaintoppufferkeepershared from you. In it, the babies seem to be able to eat BBS at around 28 days old. That is much smaller than ram fry in comparison. Well time to learn about culturing paramecium and infusoria!

Thank you @mountaintoppufferkeeperfor the links! The video has a clip of the baby next to ramshorn eggs. Man they are tiny. I also read through the puffer journal and am going to try the hands off approach as well since I have a commute-to-office kind of job. 

I am glad I inspired you to breed spotted congo puffers lol. Godspeed to both of us!

[Tyler Kaplan]

Fantastic photos - Congratulations! 

How long have the pair been together! 

[Snjchris]

On 7/20/2022 at 1:15 PM, Tyler Kaplan said:

Fantastic photos - Congratulations! 

How long have the pair been together! 

Thank you! I had the female since March and the male since June 19 from Coop. So they have been together for a month. 

[bryanisag]

Haha when people talk about breeding fish and I'm like yeah I'm a fish breeder. I have made hundreds of guppies. Then I see stuff like this and I'm like yeah that's a real fish breeder

[bnaturally]

If ANYONE can breed them, you can. So very excited and happy for you and potato girl 😊

[Snjchris]

On 7/20/2022 at 8:49 PM, bryanisag said:

Haha when people talk about breeding fish and I'm like yeah I'm a fish breeder. I have made hundreds of guppies. Then I see stuff like this and I'm like yeah that's a real fish breeder

Everyone has something they are into. I breed rams and I am trying to get my hands wet with my puffers. I got the pair to want to see group eating behavior but eggs are a bonus. 

To be honest with you, guppy breeding sound hard and a lot of work to me. The thought of having to sex and separate out the fry to prevent pregnancy are so daunting to me. Plus the line breeding and selection seems more intense. You are an accomplished fish breeder in my eye! 

[Snjchris]

On 7/20/2022 at 9:20 PM, brandonnaturally said:

If ANYONE can breed them, you can. So very excited and happy for you and potato girl 😊

Ohh Brandonnnn 🙂 Pressure is on! I watched the infusoria video you recommended from Mark's Aquatics and got my setup going. Thank you for the recommendation! 

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

On 7/20/2022 at 9:49 PM, bryanisag said:

Haha when people talk about breeding fish and I'm like yeah I'm a fish breeder. I have made hundreds of guppies. Then I see stuff like this and I'm like yeah that's a real fish breeder

funny thing is I cant get guppies or any livebearer to really breed up here they all die off for me. I'm impressed with the guppy success

[Snjchris]

A little update on the eggs: 

I put them in a Coop breeder box. Filled with tank water to almost full and dosed 4 drops of methlyene blue from 3ml pipette. 

Eggs are still in development. I didn't use a heater in the tank so temperature fluctuates at night. During the day it is 75-77 F. Laid on Mon 7/18 evening. Here are they today, Sat 7/23 (in the 3ml pipette): 

White eggs are undeveloped. 

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

Nice work. Cool photo there. 

[Snjchris]

Tuesday, July 26, a week after the eggs were laid, they started hatching. I found a few free swimming in the early morning. Left for work and when I came back, 80% + were free swimming. Super tiny, much smaller than ram fry. 

The black dots are fry. I won't be posting much updates from here. Because of my work schedule, I just dumped them in a 5 gallon algae infested tank. They just "disappeared" in it. Hope lady luck is in my favor! 

[Patrick_G]

I can’t believe I missed this thread! @Snjchris, congratulations! Try and keep us updated if you have time! 

[Snjchris]

On 7/26/2022 at 6:18 PM, Patrick_G said:

I can’t believe I missed this thread! @Snjchris, congratulations! Try and keep us updated if you have time! 

Thank you @Patrick_G! I hope I can update you guys but you know how things go first time. I hope the info I post here is helpful for future spawns 🙂

[Snjchris]

Day 4, fry are still alive! Hopefully this means they are eating sth. My infusoria culture is not ready so I am just dumping wtv fine foods I have into the tank - bbs, sera micron, some 0-50 micron fry food. 

Tank is very established. Been running like this for over a year. Here they are, still very tiny. Still too small to chomp on bbs. The floating round stuff are bbs shell.

[Patrick_G]

Wow, fingers crossed. 🙂 Thanks for the update.