Breeding c. lorteti

[OkieMavis]

Well, I've managed to acquire two female lortetis! I'll be sure to get some photos of them soon, so be added to the species profile.

Right now they are living by themselves in a heavily planted 29G tank. They are under an inch long and were *very* skinny when I got them. Thankfully it wasn't an IP, just poor feeding by the transhipper, and they are fattening right up with daily live and frozen foods. Yum! They are great eaters and will munch any frozen food I put into the tank, although they still do love hunting live snails. They are still well under 1 inch and I'm afraid to put my male with them, as he is probably 3x their size!

I've also been monitoring the other puffers that shipped in with them and remain at my LFS (where I work). There are about 8 mixed sex puffs in a 15 gallon tank (I know, poor housing! but they were a surprise shipment, and there are absolutely no other tanks). They are ridiculously well fed a the store and actually seem to be doing pretty well. They don't fight much, and it makes me wonder if perhaps the trick to them is the same with african cichs- if you crowd them in they fight less.

I was mostly just hoping for any contributions and experience you all might have. It is truly my hope to breed them, and I'm hopeful, as it's been done in captivity before. Has anyone done it? Any tips for me? Obviously plenty of good food, pristine & perfect water conditions and heavy decorations & planting. How/where do they lay their eggs? Do they display parental care? (I'm assuming no)

[Pufferpunk]

I had 3 females & 1 male. The largest female killed the other 2 & spawened with the male 3x, before she killed him too. I saw some specks in the tank but could never ID them as fry or just floating dirt. Sorry I don't have better results for you.

[OkieMavis]

Hehe- sounds like a lorteti to me! Well, I'll be sure to report back in if I get any results. What were your water parameters? Did you notice breeding behavior after water changes and that sort of thing?

[Pufferpunk]

Sorry, I wasn't that observent. I really didn't expect much. I usually do weekly, 75% WC on all my FW tanks.

[pufferfreak]

It will be interesting to see how things turn out.