It's a girl!

[Woland]

Am proud to say that my T. baileyi Kojaqueline is a girl.





Shes been acting weird of lately and I was getting afraid she might be ill.
The other day she changed her colours to a much lighter greyish hue.
Then she hid for two days, ignoring food (untypical...), so I decided to pull her tank apart to check for rotting remains of food.

What I found was 20-25 eggs with fungus on them.
A crappy mobile picture of two of the eggs can be seen here:



So; our theory on whether the degree of cirri (or hairyness) has something to do with the sex of the specimen is still wide open.
But we are one small step closer towards a conclusion.

[xautomaticflowersx]

Brilliant news! Your baileyi must be very settled in the tank to be spawning. My memory is bad... is it methylene blue that can help prevent fungus on eggs?

[Myaj]

I think an airstone under the eggs helps too, the current keeps things "fresh".

Wow, congradulations! I love the way these guys look.

[xautomaticflowersx]

Same here... they really are a great species. I may just be anthropomorphosising, but she certainly seems to look rather proud in that picture.

[Woland]

Well, the presence of a male T. baileyi would certainly help on keeping the fungus away from the eggs...
Poor little sweetie ready to do the dirty deed, but no acceptable guys present.
She is dropping her eggs in utter sadness...
Great kisser and all!

Yet; happy to be back in her tank.
A clean house, tad redecorated, moved some furniture around etc.
A nice thicket of Java-ferns to rest in.
Mr. Right will certainly show up soon.

Am not the best on reading fishies, but did an observation:
I would guess that T. baileyi is a substrate spawner.
She has never attempted to bury herself, but in the last week and a half I noticed several burrows in the substrate.

[abc]

any plans on introducing a male? wondering how it can be done since mandycat reported that her female went after the other hairy puffers when she tried a community tank set up. I know that my hairy puffer is very aggressive and would not be surprised if she killed her mate, or vice versa if the male is bigger

let us know if you have any future breeding attempts

thanks for the post... wow! how exciting

[lisalisa]

Inspiring! You obviously have been taking wonderful care with husbandry. Good for you! SO, any plans to introduce a suitor?

[Woland]

Well, the fish is extremely rare in my part of the world and she cost me an arm to begin with (180 USD).
Have a standing order for a hairy specimen at the same LFS who managed to get me my female, but who is to know whether it would be a male?

We'll see, if the opportunity presents itself I will certainly have a go at breeding.
Has anyone seen a hairy specimen of some size?
My girl is kinda large and has grown a bit as well.
All "hairys" I've seen pictured has been smallish.

Strange observation: what little cirri she had seems to have grown even more sparse.
She seems fond of squeezing herself through narrow places.
Loves to rub herself behind the tubing of the external filter.
Am afraid she is itching because of some kind of irritation in her skin.
On the other hand; this behavior is not repeated frequently enough to be caused by a "condition".
Maybe she just likes it...

She has shown little aggression towards me and whatever tools I put in the tank.
Lets herself be netted and led into her container without any fuzz at all.
Any fish I've put into the tank has been expertly dismembered and eaten,
starting with a L052 catfish her own size.
But that is her nature...

If I manage to get my hands on a like-sized hairy specimen I think I would go for a large tank if a mating should be attempted.
A heavily decorated 200 gallons maybe.

Anyone know how big a tank Mandycat attempted to hold several specimens in?

[abc]

It was a 40g heavily planted tank... in her words, very heavily planted tank. So there was supposed to be plenty of places to hide

I paid a near equivalent for my hairy puffer, but she's probably not as large as yours. Mine does not scratch herself. She has a favorite spot that she likes to occupy, squat, and chill. She's a lurker as far as I can tell, except when she wants to be fed, and then she goes into a ritual of buzzing around the front of the tank until I drop some krill. After she has her fill, she goes back to her favorite spot. That's pretty much her routine for most of the day.

She can expertly rip apart any fiddler crabs I drop in and goes for them with gusto

[Rocker]

Has anyone seen a hairy specimen of some size?


Yep remember that one I saw at the wholesalers - that was one big ugly hairy mother!! or father!!

[lisalisa]

Yeah you said it was 15cm +, right?

[Rocker]

Yeah somewhere around that size - great memory you've got!

[lisalisa]

I try. lol