Breeding Fahaka Puffers

Are your puffers feeling a little naughty & lil ones are the result? Post your findings here!
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Pufferpunk
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Posts: 32764
Joined: Tue May 31, 2005 11:06 am
Gender: Female
My Puffers: Filbert, the 12" T lineatus
Punkster, the 4" red T miurus
Mongo, the 4" A modestus
2 T biocellatus
C valentini
C coranata
C papuan
Also kept:
lorteti
DPs
suvattii
burrfish
T niphobles
Location (country): USA, Greenville, SC
Location: Chicago
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Breeding Fahaka Puffers

Post by Pufferpunk »

Breeding Fakakas

I have read that the experts say fahakas are so agressive, even to it's own species, that they have no idea how they breed, even in the wild. Here is the experience of a pufferexpert, who has kept puffers for over 40 years, Robert T Ricketts:

"Mine did not show color differences once they matured. The female periodically blew up with eggs. She would dump them I presume, but I rarely saw any. My guess was that the eggs were eaten. The intervals were longer than most egg-layers, 4-6 weeks if I remember correctly. It was the swelling with eggs that was noticeable and the periodic sudden and dramatic return to normal configuration that made me diagnose her as female, exactly the same sort of thing you see in many egglayers. The puffer’s appearance was not as different from most fish (with ribs, which puffers lack) as you would think, just slower to fill with eggs. Possibly my diet back then it was definitely not as varied as yours is now. The two males shared a 120, did not interact the same way the male-female did across the eggcrate barrier (well- braced with suction cups lining the sides and large rocks, really large rocks, 10-20 lbs bracing it from both sides in breeding setup, less secure in the male-male tank, the larger/older of the two knocked down the divider and killed his tankmate).

The breeding attempt was in a 180, started with a divider so they could get to know one another without physical contact. That started about mid way through her normal bulge cycle, and the looked interested in one another sort of like feeding time but across the eggcrate rather than the front glass. One day when I came home the tank top was broken, the eggcrate partly displaced, the male on the floor dead, the female in a cave, tailless, and with multiple wounds on her body.

She did not die immediately. The wounds healed, the caudal never regenerated other than a few stubby rays at the bottom. But she was extremely difficult to feed, never left the cave, and grew thinner and thinner, finally died.

I don't remember just how old the fish were- but I had had them from quite small (just blotched, no stripes). I probably have all the records somewhere, but it would be hard to find them. Rough guess would be at the outside 6-10 years, perhaps a bit but not a lot less.

The color diffs are most likely one or more off: fish source, tank water, diet, and lighting. I don't believe they are sexual differences, but have no basis for that other than mine were all essentially the same color, with the same diurnal color variation many other puffs show, with that being variable from day to day (or really night to night)."

~RTR
You are getting sleepy... you only hear the sound of my voice... you must do water changes... water changes... water changes... water changes...

"The solution to pollution is dilution!"
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