The Puffer Forum

Hey everyone,

I haven't posted here in a while for various reasons but now that I'm back, I want to start something interesting. With my concern of wild collection of puffer fish (particularly figure 8 and gsp etc) and its effect on their population I've been taking interest in the possibility of breeding puffers. While I personally wouldn't want to or be able to do this, I think it'd be great for someone with more resources, experience, and time to start a breeding project.

So here in this thread, people who keep any species of puffer that has yet to be captive bred should simply describe the species they own and any distinct physical traits their puffer has in their post. These could include different patterns, belly markings, bumps, etc. This is so we could see if there's any possible sexual dimorphism in certain puffer species; traits that males have that females don't have or vice versa. It would be more helpful if people who owned more than one puffer of the same species were to post in the thread and describe any possible differences between two individuals.

Hypothetically speaking, as puffers are all part of the same taxonomic family, there could be sexual dimorphism, even slightly, in some species that haven't been fully examined, as there is very obvious sexual dimorphism in some species such as the dwarf puffer etc. So to start this "experiment", I'll start by describing my puffer:

The species is a f8 puffer and something distinct I notice is a really faint short stripe running from the tail fin to the anal fin, and the presence of dorsal and possibly ventral bumps. I've also noticed some possible wrinkles behind the eyes.

As far as green spots go, there has already been a study like this and no characteristics or attributes gave away the gender of the puffer..not spot patterns or belly size or growth rate....nothing. frankly, they did not know the sex of the puffer untill they looked up thier skirts...So to speak. I suspect the same is true for f8s.

I do suspect patterns may correlate between growth rates...and I think that is because of where the puffers are collected.

I like your idea...but this kind of study would require far too much money (and salt water) not to mention it has already been done.

My first and strongest doubts on the hobby contribution of taxonomic studies of these fish is that they are the wrong fish. The chance of all of the fish currently listed as being GSPs as belonging to a single monolithic species is somewhere between unlikely and impossible IMHO. The range of the species is simply huge. It is far more likely to be a group unto itself, either of full species or at least identifiable subspecies. Expecting taxonomically untrained folk to do discriminations at this level is asking too much of hobbyists. The purely physically descriptive era of nomenclature should be past.

F-8s are at least more likely to represent a valid species, or at least fewer subspecies.

Another issue is the numbers of hobbyists actually rearing these fish from immatures to full size and maturity in conditions sufficiently healthy and stable conditions to have reasonable hopes of non-invasive sexing of these pets. Aquqrists are not often a lasting coherent group themselves.

RTR wrote:My first and strongest doubts on the hobby contribution of taxonomic studies of these fish is that they are the wrong fish. The chance of all of the fish currently listed as being GSPs as belonging to a single monolithic species is somewhere between unlikely and impossible IMHO. The range of the species is simply huge. It is far more likely to be a group unto itself, either of full species or at least identifiable subspecies. Expecting taxonomically untrained folk to do discriminations at this level is asking too much of hobbyists. The purely physically descriptive era of nomenclature should be past.

F-8s are at least more likely to represent a valid species, or at least fewer subspecies.

Another issue is the numbers of hobbyists actually rearing these fish from immatures to full size and maturity in conditions sufficiently healthy and stable conditions to have reasonable hopes of non-invasive sexing of these pets. Aquqrists are not often a lasting coherent group themselves.

Well said RTR. You explained this MUCH better than I could!

Thanks PC. But there are some fish (not just puffers) that I knew as a kid and have not seen in years. I'd like to be reassured that are still around in the wild. It would be great to able to sex and breed more puffers, but that is a huge step - some wildlings just don't do much in captivity. Altum Angels anyone? I knew another scientist who spent years trying to work with those, without success. It took a lot of years to get standard Angels to be "easy" breeders. Ditto Discus. Ditto marine w/planktonic larvae. We probably should work on those few puffers with the best known FW breeding habits, such as SAPs. But we still have a number of uncertainties even there. How many folks have those for any length of time, especially in large planted species tanks? And ever seen any foreplay or attempting breeding? I haven't, except from DPs.

Most of us are too quickly bored with fish/tanks/upkeep and move on to other interests. And puffers have another strike against them - they are not primary FW fish, they are SW fish that have developed and moved into BW and FW. Their fry are likely to almost certain to need infusoria. That is a non-trivial hurdle for many to most hobbyists.

I understand how it's already been tried and proven to be pretty much impossible to sex f8s and gsps, but I've still been itching to dabble into the possibility of even the most minor dimorphisms. My puffer personally has a slimmer shape (after I feed him, his belly is big but everything after is stick skinny) so if it's not indicative of health issues, I'd personally presume it's because he's most likely not a female and wouldn't need that area to be wider, for depositing eggs. This applies to dwarf puffers so I'm just hypothesizing that it could maybe apply to figure 8s as well. He also has little bumps on his face similar to goldfish during breeding season and although they're obviously not closely related, this feature is rather intriguing and I don't recall seeing it on every other figure 8 i've looked at. Finally, he has some bodily wrinkles, similar to the wrinkles around the eyes of dwarf puffers. I'm not entirely sure that having or lacking these features can distinguish the sex of puffers but for me it's worth a shot. If anyone sees any features different from these in their figure 8s then feel free to post in this thread. I'm just looking for possibilities, not being totally sure that sexing f8s is possible.

What's known about the fry of these brackish water puffers? Do the breeders lay eggs in brackish conditions? Do the fry migrate into or from a different water salinity? Has anyone ever collected eggs and tried to hatch them?

From what I've heard, kinda new research shows that with GSPs at least, spawning is apparently done in full saltwater. Rereading this just now kinda gave me a little bit more hope in getting some info about possible puffer sexing as well.

Yes, they need marine water to breed. So far even the scientists, who had the opportunity to see which of several hundred specimens carried eggs ("females") did'nt have a clue how to sex them, so I doubt this can done based on an aquarium study.

Aside of the GSP probably beeing not only one but several species or at least sub-species, which leads to a number of different characters that cannot be attributed to their gender there is also intraspecific variability not always linked to gender.

Last but not least, many fish do not posess stable genders, some are permanently hermaphrodites (theoretically working male and female at the same time), some are subsequent hermaphrodites which are born as females and turn to males at some point of their lives, or the other way round.