Pea Puffer Gender

[JeremyAllen]

Hi, I have heard of how it is possible to sex pea puffers in order to attempt to get “less aggressive” puffers or in other words get more females, but I have never experienced doing this in stores are puffers generally too small in stores for this or is there a place that sells puffers experienced enough to sex them?

[Keeg]

Aquarium co-op sometimes has a couple where you can tell the gender. I would agree that most stores cannot sex the fish as they are pretty difficult to tell. Usually when I see them in stores, they are too young to have the marking of which gender they are, it is kind of annoying, but you could also get lucky like I did. 

[JeremyAllen]

23 minutes ago, Keeg said:

Aquarium co-op sometimes has a couple where you can tell the gender. I would agree that most stores cannot sex the fish as they are pretty difficult to tell. Usually when I see them in stores, they are too young to have the marking of which gender they are, it is kind of annoying, but you could also get lucky like I did. 

Unfortunately I don’t live near Washington🥲 maybe I’ll just risk ordering some and seeing if I get lucky😅 thanks for the pointers I kinda figured they would be too young most stores around me sell F8s or Dragon puffers unfortunately haven’t gotten to see if I could sex them myself.

[Brandy]

If you can find a store that does sell them, you can sex them pretty easily yourself. If no one near you sells them, maybe buy in excess a bit, and then sell your males locally as single fish for a 5 gallon. When I am in ACO I have trouble sexing them in the store because my eyes are old and it is not as bright in there as I need, but with a big window or high tank lights I can figure it out. Luckily the store staff has better eyes than me.