breeding GSPs

[OraLacerta]

It be so incredible to raise the offspring of your favorite puffers... I wish there was more research on F8 breeding. I'd love to raise little Hindenburgs

[Karl]

"Some years ago I saw a web page by a hobbyist in Germany (the text was in German) that documented a precise protocol for breeding GSPs but the page has gone now". Do you mean this one:
http://web.archive.org/web/200212112116 ... etra_1.htm
and http://web.archive.org/web/200212120648 ... etrazu.htm ?
There are no photos and the author is not available.... I dont know if it would really work once again like he described it...
Karl

[Nick]

There was no information about breeding in that text as far as I can tell. Just some informations saying how he cares for his, and that he was surprised they got along with tankmates alright though he had heard they did not.

[Karl]

look this one: http://web.archive.org/web/200212120648 ... etrazu.htm ,
Karl

[Nick]

MUCH more interesting. He suggests significant size difference, with adult females being notably larger than males, and is specific that only one couple must be placed in the breeding tank. He suggests that water changes should be increased in volume and frequency over several weeks, working up to 70% every other day. During the weekly period he recommend keeping the SG about the same, but after that, varying. He also recommends fluctuations in water temperature in the water changes, ranging from a low of 68 deg to a high of 83 degrees, though I am not sure in what pattern. This flies in the face of what "everybody" knows about shocking fish with temperature, though I admit personally I have always thought this to be the singly most overstated danger in all of fishkeeping.(I've personally experienced bodies of water with fish thriving where the surface temperature was in the 80's and the deep water temperature in the 60's, and fish happily darting up and down between over only a few feet of water) However, this makes sense as a trigger for a river-mouth brackish fish in a tropical area - the river water will be cooler, due to spring flooding, moving over them in one motion of the tide or when flooding is great, and the ocean water from the bay warm, and pushing back at higher tides or when flooding water slows down. If that(admittedly completely guesswork) theory is correct, then the cooler water would be lower SG, and the warmer water, higher SG. From what I read he was able to get spawnings more then once, but only once raised the fry to fish, as there is no good way to get rid of 30 or so aggressive juvenile brackish water fish at once. This is the FIRST I have ever heard of sudden water temperature variation as a spawning trigger in puffers.

[Myaj]

I've heard of it with catfish species though, and the same theory applies.. lower temp, lower pH water to simulate spring flooding/rains triggers spawing.

And with rainbowfish, increased sunlight on the tank can do the same.

Its crazy the sort of things that can trigger spawing in fish, and it expains a whole lot about why we haven't been very successful yet in getting them to breed AND raise up the fry to adults.

[Nick]

I"d really like of someone with really strong German and familiar with aquariums could translate that for us.

[Agnate]

I wish I took more German classes! I might be able to get my girlfriend to do a partial translation, as she speaks swiss-german, but I'm not sure if she'd be able to understand much.

[Nick]

Yea, I'm pretty worried even a very skilled German speaker might have trouble with the aquarium-specific vocabulary.

[Corvus]

While I don't have the time to translate the entire text, feel free to ask if anything is difficult to translate/understand. My German is a little better than my English.

This is one of the reports I'm always talking about. It was on the internet a few years ago. So far I'm not totally convinced this isn't a fake.

[Pufferpunk]

Is the Bablefish translation that bad?

[Nick]

My summary is my best take on what I got from the babelfish. It seems to choke on nearly all the aquarium terms, as German uses many compound words, and isn't doing well with ordering, "this then that" type things are not clear.

[Umbrella]

MUCH more interesting. He suggests significant size difference, with adult females being notably larger than males, and is specific that only one couple must be placed in the breeding tank. He suggests that water changes should be increased in volume and frequency over several weeks, working up to 70% every other day. During the weekly period he recommend keeping the SG about the same, but after that, varying. He also recommends fluctuations in water temperature in the water changes, ranging from a low of 68 deg to a high of 83 degrees, though I am not sure in what pattern. This flies in the face of what "everybody" knows about shocking fish with temperature, though I admit personally I have always thought this to be the singly most overstated danger in all of fishkeeping.(I've personally experienced bodies of water with fish thriving where the surface temperature was in the 80's and the deep water temperature in the 60's, and fish happily darting up and down between over only a few feet of water) However, this makes sense as a trigger for a river-mouth brackish fish in a tropical area - the river water will be cooler, due to spring flooding, moving over them in one motion of the tide or when flooding is great, and the ocean water from the bay warm, and pushing back at higher tides or when flooding water slows down. If that(admittedly completely guesswork) theory is correct, then the cooler water would be lower SG, and the warmer water, higher SG. From what I read he was able to get spawnings more then once, but only once raised the fry to fish, as there is no good way to get rid of 30 or so aggressive juvenile brackish water fish at once. This is the FIRST I have ever heard of sudden water temperature variation as a spawning trigger in puffers.

Think weather. Suppose you had a pond or a lake or something. Lets say it has not rained in 3 days and its pretty hot outside...like 90 something degrees outside. Water will warm and some evaporates, lowering the quality of the water. Then, finally it RAINS (here is the freshest water you can get... no stupid chemicals like chlorine to "purify" it.) The rain not only improves the water quality of the lake by diluting any pollutants, but it also cools the water down, aerates it and lowers its salinity. Also when its raining it is darker outside because of cloud cover, so under the water probably appears to them like twilight for us. Just enough light to see what you are doing. I'm not saying they only do so when it rains, I'm just saying. They can do it whenever, but why do it when its like 100 degrees out ? The cycle repeats and somewhere in there they make babies. ( not necessarily WHILE its raining, but sometime shortly there after. )

So if you had a large tank ( so they have space to dance ) and gave it some plants for cover ( like Anubias ) and had sand so they could make a pit if they wanted to, AND a flat rock, incase they want to use that AND a cave incase they want to use that. Then you put em in there and used a HEAT lamp, not a heater (like for reptiles) to heat the water (turn it off to cool) and mimic what the sun does. Then you could use RAIN water ONLY for your water changes....You might find little babies after a few days. All you have to do is mimic their natural habitats weather cycles. So knowing EXACTLY where they came from is probably the single most important factor. (period) That little piece of info (where they came from) is usually the info either no one cares about or they don't share it because they are jerks and they think you are going to steal their fish business away. If you don't even know exactly where ( the exact body of water ) it came from... then you can't even possibly begin to mimic its weather patters...cause you have no clue!

Make sense or no ? Somehow I think everyone is over analyzing the whole thing. I guarantee you once we get it figured out and have the process on lock down, we are all going to look back on these conversations and laugh.. cause its probably not really all so hard. After all they are only fish. I dunno bout you guys, but it makes perfect sense to me...

Ah yes and as a final note : a good chunk of the creatures in this world consist of Females being larger than males (well ya duh, if you are carrying eggs OR live offspring - you gotta be bigger.. there has to be somewhere to keep them) Males usually have more vibrant colors... so they can make pretty and attract that special female. I'm not saying thats the way it is for puffers, but that is the way it is for a nice chunk of Earths creatures.

AND also Google has a Translation tool. May or May not be better than babelfish.

[Corvus]

The evaporation and rain thing you describe really triggers lots of spawnings of various fish families and might be worth a try. I've tried similar things, used rain water, ridicously large water changes to no avail, but others might be luckier.

If one would desperately want to breed them: Those brackish to marine puffers (and many other fish) that are being bred in large numbers (several thousands to tenthousands per farm) for consumption are treated with hormones to produce offspring. No hormones, no spawning in captivity so far. You probably just need the help of a vet...

Enriched hormones and other metabolites in our tank water may also be a critical factor why breeding does not work. For other fish (e.g. a moray species) it is known their natural development does not take place in closed sytsems, but apparently only open systems run with natural seawater.

Size: On some puffers we can easily sex (e.g. Carinotetraodon spp.) the males are larger, possibly because they have to defend their territories. So all 3 options can occur: large females, large males or no size difference at all. Sexing GSP will be difficult, they cannot even be sexed genetically, maybe they are hermaphrodites (numerous fish are). Maybe they are born as males and develop to females... nobody knows so far.

[Nick]

"Size: On some puffers we can easily sex (e.g. Carinotetraodon spp.) the males are larger, possibly because they have to defend their territories. So all 3 options can occur: large females, large males or no size difference at all. Sexing GSP will be difficult, they cannot even be sexed genetically, maybe they are hermaphrodites (numerous fish are). Maybe they are born as males and develop to females... nobody knows so far."
This could explain why sucessfull pairings had size-disparate puffers - if gender is developmental, a smaller immature puffer might become the needed sex to breed with the larger already gender defined puffer. I've heard of doing that with clown fish, I think.