mountaintoppufferkeeper Posted September 15, 2023 Share Posted September 15, 2023 The fun has begun. I have started with 4 wild caught cross puffers they landed late last night and were added to their tank tonight. My big puffer learning curve has begun Initial observation .... 1. need more plants and sight breaks 2.they are active hunters 3. Have bigger appetites than expected 4. they posture and display a bit more than any other species ive kept 5. This could be a short thread .....but hopefully it goes for a long time 🙂 3 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JE47 Posted September 15, 2023 Share Posted September 15, 2023 Looks like a lot of fun. Keep us posted on the journey. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSwissAquarist Posted September 15, 2023 Share Posted September 15, 2023 On 9/15/2023 at 6:24 AM, mountaintoppufferkeeper said: The fun has begun. I have started with 4 wild caught cross puffers they landed late last night and were added to their tank tonight. My big puffer learning curve has begun Initial observation .... 1. need more plants and sight breaks 2.they are active hunters 3. Have bigger appetites than expected 4. they posture and display a bit more than any other species ive kept 5. This could be a short thread .....but hopefully it goes for a long time 🙂 Coming along for the ride!! Have these been bred in aquarium surroundings before ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountaintoppufferkeeper Posted September 15, 2023 Author Share Posted September 15, 2023 On 9/14/2023 at 11:52 PM, TheSwissAquarist said: Coming along for the ride!! Have these been bred in aquarium surroundings before ? As far as I have found not yet. They were a little fired up on release but all good today and less establishing of a pecking order from the behaviors on night 1. So far so good. I will be filling the cart with plants today for a bit of help in more plant provided sight blocks. They basically have 80% of the live plants and coop planters in the fishroom now😁 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountaintoppufferkeeper Posted September 27, 2023 Author Share Posted September 27, 2023 Day 12 Still need more plants but have added 18 coop plants plus something like 20 from other tanks to this "pond" All four cross rivers have posed tonight a bit. They ate pretty well yesterday. Their demeanor is more like fsirly interactive bull sharks in my set up. They rexognize me but when not full they are a little "sassy" and when hungry and food arrives they will chase and defend their meal. So far the plants work well and we have figured out our spots in the colony dynamic. I even caught two sleeping next to eaxh other this early am (no photo unfortunately) 4 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountaintoppufferkeeper Posted October 7, 2023 Author Share Posted October 7, 2023 (edited) This evening: two of the four Tetraodon pustulatus cross river puffers. 4 of 8 extra large amazon swords added to the coop easy planters 4 still floating. If these puffers arent full they are looking for food any time they see me. Small fish are limia vittata who serve as their "clean up crew" Edited October 8, 2023 by mountaintoppufferkeeper 1 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountaintoppufferkeeper Posted October 9, 2023 Author Share Posted October 9, 2023 8 october 23 : Today we tried the first frozen thawed raw "bait" crayfish today. We are still learning how to eat this food item but they are fans it seems. The hope is to have this food be in regular rotation as they grow. A still of the first taste of crayfish here. These four cross rivers are very food defensive. My current strategy, to limit their need to defend food against each other, is to position even more coop planters and plants so that each member has a sheltered location to eat frozen meals which is blocked from the view of the other four "feeding stations" across the 270 gallon. 6 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Cory Posted October 10, 2023 Administrators Share Posted October 10, 2023 Just catching up on this journal. Awesome, I hope to learn from your observations with these guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountaintoppufferkeeper Posted October 10, 2023 Author Share Posted October 10, 2023 It is certainly going to be an adventure and learning process with them. They are a whole different puffer when feeding or hunting food vs the rest of the time. I am cautiously optomistic about the project and am learning more about their behaviors and patterns each day I have with them. ********** 9 October 23 Update More easyplanters are still on the way for addition into the "cross river pond" this week. My plan is to create four feeding stations spread across the tank using a few easyplanters each. The feeding stations will use plants to limit the ability for the puffers to see each other while eating at any station. My goal is to condition them to feed at their prefered "feeding station" locations so I can limit the need to defend their food against each other. Two have already claimed the front corners of the tank and Two have claimed the back corners. All my puffer colonys (Pao palustris, P.baileyi, the spotted congos, and to some extent the P.abei) have had some similarity to the Tetraodon pustulatus behaviors while sorting out their spots in their colony. Based off those experiences and the currently observed behaviors with the cross rivers I still believe its got a shot at working out as they mature. I have caught two sleeping next to eachother a few times this first month 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSwissAquarist Posted October 10, 2023 Share Posted October 10, 2023 They do have some seriously fun looks, what with the head shape and side markings. Are they able to take anything else in the way of crustaceans/mollusks 🦞 like shrimp or clams? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountaintoppufferkeeper Posted October 12, 2023 Author Share Posted October 12, 2023 They do not seem to mess with clams much for me (the shell is untouched in the clip below), they prefer snails: mysterys, trapdoors, ramshorns. I have also fed whole frozen krill to them. That helped disperse the food and limit the need for defending it. Id assume shrimp would work the same as krill. They are primarily are eating frozen thawed raw crayfish. I put one of around this size in 6 locations around the tank. They generally have locations they eat in and if i can break up the sight lines they just focus on the food and not defending it. I figured out the super slow mo setting on the samsung. There is a frozen raw crayfish behind the one planter and another to the left of the boxfilter. This is impossible to see at normal speeds but is a the general idea of how they defend food against eachother. There have been less marks on their bodies than when they initially arrived so it may be more of a display like this was than using their mouths to sort it out. They do quite a bit of posturing and tail fanning. My intention is to get a pair or trio still but all four seem to be going well. 1 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted October 12, 2023 Share Posted October 12, 2023 On 10/12/2023 at 1:47 PM, mountaintoppufferkeeper said: There have been less marks on their bodies than when they initially arrived so it may be more of a display like this was than using their mouths to sort it out. They do quite a bit of posturing and tail fanning. My intention is to get a pair or trio still but all four seem to be going well. Very well done capturing this moment. That's quite the interesting little moment! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountaintoppufferkeeper Posted October 12, 2023 Author Share Posted October 12, 2023 I kept forgetting it was an option on the phone. Ill work on better ines in the future 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Odd Duck Posted October 12, 2023 Share Posted October 12, 2023 It looked like it was going to be worse, then it turned into just a nudge. Nudges are tolerable. 😝 That was a very nice little clip to capture! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountaintoppufferkeeper Posted October 13, 2023 Author Share Posted October 13, 2023 Yeah nothing to major they do get fired up for food mostly. Then they feast and find a nice a nice spot to grow.... and repeat tomorrow 3 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSwissAquarist Posted October 13, 2023 Share Posted October 13, 2023 Call me a newbie but I’m still marveling at the DIY filters. 😅 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountaintoppufferkeeper Posted October 19, 2023 Author Share Posted October 19, 2023 On 10/13/2023 at 12:07 AM, TheSwissAquarist said: Call me a newbie but I’m still marveling at the DIY filters. 😅 Yeah those are handy. They are an older design of boxfilter I run. Air driven and able to hold plenty of whatever media is needed. That uplift tube is a bit of a hotrod modification to increase the flow. Im running 3 of them with sera media and polyfill floss In the 270 ....and 4 sicce 900 pros with 2 extra chambers of sponge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountaintoppufferkeeper Posted December 1, 2023 Author Share Posted December 1, 2023 (edited) UPDATE: I consulted with a few more experienced in cross river puffers and based on my limited undersanding of puffer behaviors, the collective cross river puffer knowledge of those individuals, and their discussions with field collectors, exporters, and their collegues I assessed I had 4 males. Turns out, as you can imagine, all males is not conducive to producing fry in the future. I have moved 3 on to better situations and retained this guy out of the 4 So now the hunt begins for a female cross river to buy or possibly trade for a male. The gist is if the cross river has less spotting it is likely to be a female. Edited December 1, 2023 by mountaintoppufferkeeper 3 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 (edited) @Leo2o915eleo do you know what gender yours is? Edited December 1, 2023 by nabokovfan87 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllFishNoBrakes Posted December 7, 2023 Share Posted December 7, 2023 Went by the LFS that we both frequent and saw these guys in there today! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountaintoppufferkeeper Posted January 21 Author Share Posted January 21 This project has become a growing this cross river up. Im not to sure ill find another to pair but its been pretty fun so far. Tonights feeding was Eco fresh Dubia roaches. The "fresh" packaged bugs are popular with this puffer...... and the hundreds of cuban limia in the 270 with him. I always try for livebearers in with the puffers to handle the messy eating the limia vittata seem to be doing great here so far. They have been even better than the variatus platy for me. My current palustrus feeding rotation : "Fresh packaged": dubia roaches, superworms, soldierfly larvae Frozen foods : clams, raw whole crayfish, tilapia strips The rest: ramshorn snails, trapdoor snails, mystery snails, earthworms 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halvyt Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 Great looking setup. I am curious to know how you determined that you had 4 males? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountaintoppufferkeeper Posted January 21 Author Share Posted January 21 (edited) On 1/21/2024 at 7:58 AM, Halvyt said: Great looking setup. I am curious to know how you determined that you had 4 males? @Halvyt Thanks kindly. I could certainly be confidently wrong of course that is just my best informed belief when i moved the 3 on.Im basing my determination off of the opinions of others, and my experience with the other puffer breeding projects here. I was already leaning that they were all males based on personal experience with puffer breeding behaviors here then I asked those with more experience than I have with the species. The behavior of all 4 cross rivers towards eachother, once they hit about 7"-8" (17-21cm) long, was similar to the spotted congo puffer males, and males of the pao species I keep in colonys toward other males. ( I'll add the behaviors in the other species of puffer to the end for comparison. ) Once it seemed likely that I had males I asked the opinions of those with experience collecting, exporting, or working with them. The consensus there was the males have the spotted pattern and females less spots and a more lined pattern. Its still not confirmed one way or the other and I could of course be confidently wrong about what the males and females look like, but my understanding is the lined crossriver puffer with less red spots are sometimes collected with the spotted cross rivers from the wild. There is some discussion that the lined cross river puffer could be a fahaka-pustulatus hybrid occuring in the river. I lean more on the side of thise being females based on my still limited experience with puffers. I intend to determine that for myself at somepoint in the future :). ****The GIF behavior comparisons**** Cross river puffers :never did real damage (no fin tears etc). This clip yhry didnt actually touch. The behavior here was more often as they grew and occured between all 4 cross river males in the 270 gallon. I added tones of plants and made feeding stations out of easy planters and amazon sword plants. That bought me enough time to decide they were all males. This may also be food aggression (the snails on the bottom). The most frequent conspecific aggression between the 4 was dueing feedings but as they matured it was when any of the four caught sight of eachother. This is much like ehat i caught from two of my 4 adult spotted congos in their qt tank on arrival. I assessed this to be related to tank space more than anything in this 20 gallon. These two and 2 more i assume the cross river is a bigger more territorial and food aggressive version of these. Here is as close to that charging behavior as I have seen in my colonys of (Pao baileyi) hairy puffers Vs an adult male displaying to an adult female in front of his cave Pao palustris spawning behaviors F1 male left F1 female right Pao "exported as abei" male in cave female about to join him Pao leiurus male emerges behind female The male female dynamic is more of display mock charge vs the male male aggression in the cross rivers. The way i read the behaviors they more driving away competition, defending food, and area than finding a mate in the group . Edited January 21 by mountaintoppufferkeeper 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halvyt Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 Thanks for the explanation. I only have experience with fahaka's. How big were your puffers? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountaintoppufferkeeper Posted January 22 Author Share Posted January 22 Cross rivers were all in the 6.5"- 7" range when sent to forever homes... the one kept back for the cross river project is now 8-8.5 " ish...... a pretty cool puffer species 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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