Red Eye Red Tail Puffer Breeding Journal

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

Looking great

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I’ve really like the steady growth I’ve seen with all 3 of the females. They’re getting more inquisitive and aggressive about feeding but still very shy. 

 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

It’s been a month and the Single Ladies as my wife has come to call them are looking great. 

At this point I’m planning in a month or 2 to move them and Hank to a deluxe apartment for their breeding needs. 

Here’s a pic of Hank and have fun everyone! 

[eatyourpeas]

Handsome Hank! Very nice little group! 😍

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@mountaintoppufferkeeperdo you think we’re getting close to the right size to introduce them? I’d say they are now greater than 1/2 his size. 

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

@Beardedbillygoat1975Id give it a shot. The limited info out there indicates the females of this species breed around 2/3rds the size of the males; Females at +/- 1.4" total length vs male at +/- 2.4" total length.Particularly if you notice a female reducing her food consumption and plumping up. That is likely an indication of ready for spawning in the next day or two in this species. 

 

My group is 2 males 3 females and have been together in their 40 breeder since arrival in November? ish. Lots of room makes for no fighting here ....so far. 

I noticed this clear pattern variation between my two males. Subdominant male is just grey where the dominant male is darker grey brown with that dorsal crest and striping

Subdominant male normal coloration

He is more single toned as compared to the below dominant male.

Dominant male coloration +/- 2 " TL

Below right of photo is a female +/- 1.4" TL

Id guess is a 10 gallon or larger would work for spawning but the smaller the better for egg collection. Then the real fun begins 🙂

The indicators I am looking for are the red keel belly stripe and that crest on the male and the female going off food and plumping up. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Thanks so much @mountaintoppufferkeeper!

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

On 1/16/2023 at 11:23 AM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

Thanks so much @mountaintoppufferkeeper!

Looking forward to seeing those spawn for you.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Here’s a mature male. This is Hank Hill, he’s now 2+ years old. 

Plan is to give him and the 2 girls a 40 g all to themselves this spring. 

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

How interactive are they with you ? They are a pretty enjoyable and aware puffer for me at this point. 

 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Hank is very interactive. He dances when he sees me with a Tupperware of snails. The females are getting more so. I had a sneaker male with them and he finally showed his colors so I was never seeing them. Now I see both females begging for food. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I’ve done the deed - all 3 are now in a 20 high together with clumps of subwassertang and moss in all the corners and loads of hides. Not sure I’ll see them for a couple days as there are a ton of scuds in there for them to hunt. I’ll get pics when I can see something. 

Edited February 3, 2023 by Beardedbillygoat1975

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Well the trio is truly a trio. They’ve formed a hierarchy and I’m impressed with how respectful they’ve been of each other. 

happy days in the fishroom!! Have fun everyone!

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I have sad news, due to a bad gfi outlet I lost the trio. I’ll be updating my journal to detail further but it’s been sad times around the fish room. 

[MAC]

Dang man, sorry to hear this. 

[Odd Duck]

On 3/18/2023 at 1:58 AM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

I have sad news, due to a bad gfi outlet I lost the trio. I’ll be updating my journal to detail further but it’s been sad times around the fish room. 

So sorry to hear this.  It must have been so frustrating to find this.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

My wife is a bit miffed at the puffers as a group. She loves her pea puffers but she’s down on the red eyes after this saga. She wants a peaceful shrimp focused community in our 60 g next. Unfortunately, in the short term the fishroom is slowly being decommissioned until the time and monies to do it right are found. 

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 3/28/2023 at 9:56 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

She wants a peaceful shrimp focused community in our 60 g next.

Hasn’t she already got the Opae Ula bowl? 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Well @TheSwissAquarist much of my hobby revolves around keeping my wife engaged enough that she isn’t resentful of all the time and energy I put into this. It’s a balancing act. I am hoping that eventually my time will open up work wise a bit down the road that I could get back to this puffer project. It took me over a year to collect the specimens and then months to condition them. When Fish Room 3.0 happens it would be a priority to have a puffer breeding program. In the meantime, I have many people here on the forum to live vicariously through. 

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 3/30/2023 at 8:53 AM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

Well @TheSwissAquarist much of my hobby revolves around keeping my wife engaged enough that she isn’t resentful of all the time and energy I put into this. It’s a balancing act. I am hoping that eventually my time will open up work wise a bit down the road that I could get back to this puffer project. It took me over a year to collect the specimens and then months to condition them. When Fish Room 3.0 happens it would be a priority to have a puffer breeding program. In the meantime, I have many people here on the forum to live vicariously through. 

I fully understand the balancing act you have to do, it’s the same between me and my parents. I was told that some rocks down by a river looked nice…aka put them in your tank so that I continue to look upon them favorably . Heading for that Easter Island look: 

[Tnt fish]

Hello, 

I’m in aww 🥰 over this chat. I sad to hear the puffers passed. Saddens me deeply. I have 3. Started with two I am positive they are males. But I just added one to my collection in a separate tank of course. And I believe it’s female. But not 100% sure. I am highly interested in breeding them. I have ran into a problem of finding females. All my LFS don’t carry them. I travel an hour away to Geiser pets in yuba city as that’s where I’ve gotten them from. But even then it was a rare occasion that they received them. I love to get as much pointers as possible to be successful and where I can get some females. I have been successful in breeding rainbow convicts, pink convicts, cherry shrimp, vampire shrimp, mystery snails. My boyfriend and I have started breeding for our newly started business. Tnt fish. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@mountaintoppufferkeeperand others can speak up but my keys for keeping them are 1. Get a good size group, 3 is good but 5 or more is Better. This way they distribute aggression more evenly and you get a better ratio of males to females. I got to 1:3, 2:5 etc. and I think that’s ideal. 2. Lots of variety of meaty foods. They’ll get picky if you don’t regularly rotate foods - they are quite intelligent and can develop habits and tastes if you get lazy and feed worms too often they’ll stop eating other foods. Scuds are great watching them hunt them was always a thrill! 3. Lots of plants, hard scape and sight breaks to help fish hide and escape aggression. Moss will be needed to collect eggs, Subwassertang is awesome as well. 4. Aeration, good water and a soft substrate like sand. 5. I’d avoid other tankmates and do species only unless you have a dither that your ok with losing. Due to their intelligence I found them to be obsessive about other fish and they can go after that other fish quite viciously. I sent you the online seller I went through I wish you much success and enjoyment as they are a spectacular fish to work with. 

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

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. 

 

Edited June 22, 2023 by mountaintoppufferkeeper

[LionheartsGhost]

Hello! In the past I have tried to breed C. Irrubesco, always with no luck. But recently I have had some accidental luck with C. Lorteti. I will post some videos. 
Last Saturday my Lorteti’s spawned around 2 pm. Four days later in the evening I spotted fry in the tank. I added a hang on breeder net with some Java moss. I used a turkey baster to suck them out. I counted 38 but there were many I got doubles and didn’t count because I lost sight of them in the baster so i think the number was closer to 50. 
The next morning I was only able to observe a handful in the net. Yesterday only a few. And today only a few.

I am afraid most of them passed away. I have to admit that this was totally unexpected and I have no resources to take care of them. I have been feeding a tiny pinch of first bites 3 times a day because it is all I had on hand for baby fish. But I cannot observe them actually eating the first bites. My tank is a year old and I’m sure there is plenty of micro organisms in the water but I’m not sure they can make it through the net mesh. 
I have since bought a hang on breeder that pumps water through, a brine shrimp hatchery and eggs, and a micro worm starter for future occurrences and am waiting for them to arrive. I also put a small Tupperware under their spawning area so I can harvest eggs instead of fry.

My tank was 11 months old when I introduce the Lorteti’s. Prior to that the tank was empty for about six months due to me loosing all my Irrubesco’s due to me improperly setting up a surface skimmer and them getting sucked in. So I took a break. The tank was completely filled with snails at the introduction with them being non visible by morning. I have 5 Lorteti’s, 3 males of different ages and sizes and 2 young adult females. Water is extremely hard, ppm 300-400 from faucet. Faucet water has a ph of 9.5 but tank stays between 7.5 and 8.5 depending on how close to water changes. Current ph is 7.6. No sign of ammonia. I can test nitrate and nitrite if requested. I feed them frozen brine shrimp every morning and cycle between mysis shrimp and bloodworms every evening. I feed them snails whenever I can, I would say once a month. But I often see baby snails in the tank and they might possibly be colonizing in secret.  
The dominant male was dancing with his preferred female for maybe a week or so prior to spawning but it was never as long and vigorous as the day of spawning. 3 days before spawning I left my light on all night. The next two days he did not try to initiate spawning.The day after I set my light back to the timer so it runs 5:30 am to 8:30 pm. The third day after resetting was spawning day. I realized that he didn’t initiate spawning until about a week after I had originally set the timer to 5:30-8:30. Possibly an important environmental factor. 
At first male did not follow female to spawn but made sure the other three Lorteti’s were banished to the far corner. After spawning dad banished mom and remained close to the eggs to guard them, never letting the others near and hardly came out to eat other then what floated near his area. I never saw the eggs after they dropped to the substrate. Dad was quite visibly upset while I was harvesting fry with the baster. 
My tank is a 40 gallon breeder. The temperature stays at 78 degrees throughout the day but drops to 75 and even as low as 73 some nights.

Video 1 shows the dance 

Video 2 shows spawning, in high quality and brightness turned all the way up you can just view the eggs sputter down at 10 seconds

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by LionheartsGhost

[LionheartsGhost]

Also I find these helpful for determining species.