The Puffer Forum

This puffer looks like the one Browncloud has... http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/vie ... c&&start=0

And I must say there's something about this puffer that does not look like irrubesco...

Yep taly, she definitely looks like the one in the link

To me there is no comparison to the link. The markings are not like my femalle salivator but exactly like the female irrubesco.

Irrubesco.

It's not salivator... That's for sure!

The one of Rocker is a nice one, indeed! Even the dorsal has some red. Looks somehow quite masculine IMO. Is this the one that layed eggs and killed the other?

Have my female for about 2.5 years and it doesn't have any red, at least in all the light I had her in. The numerous irrubesco specimens the species was originally based on, did not have red fins either. I'm looking forward to see if mine gets the same coloration as Rockers.

Looks like I'm calling mine irrubesco then!

Corvus wrote:The one of Rocker is a nice one, indeed! Even the dorsal has some red. Looks somehow quite masculine IMO. Is this the one that layed eggs and killed the other?

Have my female for about 2.5 years and it doesn't have any red, at least in all the light I had her in. The numerous irrubesco specimens the species was originally based on, did not have red fins either. I'm looking forward to see if mine gets the same coloration as Rockers.

Indeed, the specimen is a female. Layed eggs twice that i noticed.
I had her along withanother female and a sickly male. The male quickly died and I transfered the two females to the DP tank where they lived happily for a good two years.
One week however I was picking out a dead Dp each morning.
That was also followed by a borneo loach that gave me a clue it was the irrubesco.
I remove the two females back to a species only tank and added another male. This is when, under different lighting you could easily see the red tails where I hadn't noticed them before. She went on to kill the new male and then the other female that she had lived with for two and a half years.

Rocker wrote:... This is when, under different lighting you could easily see the red tails...

Both females did have red tails? That's really amazing. And mine never ever showed any aggression (so far), maybe she has not reached sexual maturity, yet.

Have you tried different lighting?

or taking a photo with and without a flash?

I've tried that... I can't see the red tail

Marine-glo, aqua-glo, solar marin, tropical special plant and marine day were the ones I had tried on this tank.

I can see all the fins of the male are red, but none of the female. Will try to take a picture, but it seems improbable that I can photograph red what I can't see red. The ones I have taken so far show no red, but they are not very good, either.



The picture above was taken using a flash and tropical special plant.

I'd guess that is a sexual maturity thing or geographical or standard variation. Just as the anal and pectoral fins of the males. Some are red, some are not.

lol just to throw more confusion in the equation

Finding the diagnostic traits which seperate the different species is tricky. For the males it is (among others like fin rays) the completely red tail that makes them irrubesco, for the females it is - as Fella said - the broken lines on the belly.

Let's wait some years to see if taly's and my females get red tails. I have seen red tailed females in 2000 (?) and had the idea they could be suppressed males colored almost like females and bulkier (known from other fish), but Rocker's female laying eggs has proven this idea wrong!