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Crazy Platies...is this normal?

5K views 12 replies 5 participants last post by  Sylverclaws 
#1 ·
Hey all, my boyfriend is setting up his 55 gallon tank and we are using 7 platies to cycle. Please first of all my post is NOT regarding whether it is OK to cycle with platies, I would appreciate no judgement or lectures from those of you who do not think it is OK to cycle with fish-in. We did the fish in cycle with our cichlids (on accident) and they all turned out perfect.

Anyways I have never owned platies before and they are really awesome to watch, especially since they are alone in a huge tank. My question is...are they always so active? I feel like they are skimming the top for food constantly and we don't want to overfeed, but seriously they are psychotic. Is this normal?

Thanks all!
 
#2 · (Edited)
No, mine don't skim the top. They are always picking around on the bottom or on plants/driftwood. Maybe you need to do a water change. I've cycled 2 tanks with platys and found it's best to do daily water changes until cycled. Have you tested your water for ammonia, nitrates and nitrites? What kit are you using? But they are active. Are you near the tank when they do this? Try being away from the tank and watching, as when I'm near mine they go into feeding mode.P.S. You should keep a ratio of 1 male -2 female. Too many females leads to f on f aggression.
 
#3 ·
Nothing has spiked yet regarding ammonia, nitrates, nitrites. We have had the tank set up and running for about 3 weeks now. He originally bought 2 mollies from walmart and they died 2 days later...I maintain that they died because they were from walmart.

Then I went and bought 4 platies from a different pet store and then just went out and got 3 more so now we have 7, which I'm hoping will kick start the cycle. They are swimming all over the tank I don't know, maybe I'm just not used to such active fish. My 55 gallon has cichlids and they are pretty sedate.
 
#5 ·
Thanks, they are really neat little fish. How many would you say is a good healthy group? Even though it is my boyfriend's tank I might get more to get a big school going.
 
#6 ·
Platys don't really school. They are prolific breeders and before you know it you will have more than you can handle. I have a 20g and I keep 1 male 2 females. I have to give the fry away to keep from overcrowding. Hiding places for the fry will help more survive as the parents will eat them. My original plan was to let them be eaten and at first this worked as usually 2 survive each batch. But it seems the parents lose interest in them after a few batches and I'm over overrun. The babies are cute and fun to watch. As I said they don't really school and IME the more Platys you have, the more aggression you have. But you have a 55g and I have a 20g, maybe my advise really won't apply to you. I have tried a group of 5 and they were always fighting so watch yours for a while before adding.
 
#7 ·
Good to know, thanks! If they all survive the cycling process, anything you suggest to be added with them? Maybe a large centerpiece fish and some more calm swimmers
 
#9 ·
I've keep platy's for years (way before i knew about this site) I love the dark red color! Plus i find it so relaxing/de-stress to turn off the lights in the room and turn on the tank light and just watch them.

I currently have 4 in my 25gal tank and 3 in my 20gal tank and i've never had a prb with aggression.

One of my females gave birth in a 5 gal tank i cycled for that reason, so once she had her babies i put her back into the 25gal tank. I have 3 more pregnant females (one's in a on the side breeder tank, the other 2 are in the 5 gal tank waiting to deliver. I have no idea what i'm going to do with all the babies....YIKES!
 
#10 ·
I have no idea if I'm correct but I think one of my red platies is pregnant...how many fry does an average female have? Also, this tank is currently being cycled and I have no other tank option to put them in...what do I do if she does have fry?
 
#11 ·
Hi
I have had platy's for years also. I let mine have their fry in the main tank. I have a 45g. I let nature take it's course. Only the strong survive. I have 6 girls that are due very soon. When I do get over run, I end up giving them away to friends and family or putting them in my big 55g tank with my angels and barbs as a snack. See if your LFS will take some off your hands. No one around me will.
HTH
 
#13 ·
Platy are more group fish than schoolers. They like to be in the group, but sometimes they like their privacy too. They're good active fish too, and it is recommended to have 3+ of them per tank. You have seven, so you're good and could probably get a couple more in that tank so long as you don't get too many other fish. =p

It's not exactly "Nature" taking its course when they're in an aquarium, no matter how big it is. I hate the idea of caged fish being allowed to murder the trapped babies. It happens regardless of precautions taken though, but I'd suggest getting an in-tank breeder net, they're not very expensive and go in the tank, some float in there. Either a net or one of the plastic boxes with a divider. If your fish does ok with being moved into one of the plastic ones with a divider, that'll be ok. But if you do that, don't put her in there more than six hours or so. If she doesn't give birth, it's best to let her do it in the main tank over risking her getting too stressed out, and then catch all the babies you can to put into the box to raise them, it's not hard to do. They can live in there for a couple weeks before they're big enough to go into the adult tank. You can also sell the babies, or just plain give them away to anyone or any petshop willing to take them off your hands. It's a waste of good fish to trap them and allow the parents to kill them(the ones that atleast try to save some are good in my book, even I know you can't save them all, but intentionally pulling the survival garbage is cruelty), and very unfair even if they had a 100 gallon, well-planted tank. In the wild they have miles of water to call home and escape in.

Also, good tank mates for platy...Hm, you want a bigger fish too? x.x Let me think. Platy CAN get nippy, so you probably don't want anything with flowey fins, and nothing that would be aggressive and bite on or try to kill them either, but something that can take care of itself with the little nippers...I never added other fish with my platy aside from Pleco, shrimp and mollies. But my aunt used to keep a Blue Gourami with her mollies, which have similar attitudes to platy. But I am pretty sure she got lucky with that, because some of them can be aggressive. Just like with Betta, it'd kinda be a rare luck of the draw thing to get a normally aggressive/semi-aggressive fish to go well with everyone. Hm, I am not sure if I should say this or not, but Rainbow Fish get about 8 inches long or so and are very peaceful. I am not sure the tank is big enough...I haven't done big fish before myself, so I wouldn't know what they need. I do know Rainbows are schoolers though, but fairly peaceful and pretty fish.
Or you could always go for the ever-placid big fancy goldfish. They like cooler waters though, so you wouldn't want it above 74-76 degrees in there, 74 is probably the minimum Platy should have, 76 being preferable compared. Petshops say 72 for mollies and platy, ignore them and their info. lol
I don't really have any great ideas for you on a bigger "Centerpiece" fish to go with them, but you can look into those and others named. You could always go with something like a male sailfin molly of some sort, they can get about 4-6 inches long and are gorgeous, get along with platy...and I hear they can breed with them, some argue it's impossible, others swear by it. I have a male dalmation lyretail molly who is about four+ inches long, he's pretty much my centerpiece in my tank of mollies and they get bigger than most if not all platy. lol This is what he looks like, if you're interested in how they'd look:




He's the pride of my tank, I think something like that would look good with the colorful platy, and go well with them to boot. They're no more aggressive than platy can get, occasionally bully fish happen for all types but it's not too common. They eat the same things, can be in the same kind of water well, they're hardy, and they all eat the same stuff. They also both like warmer waters, though platy usually like their max about two degrees below what mollies do. lol If you keep your temp at about 77-78 degrees, they should all be perfectly happy.

Other than this, I don't have too much to help you with, sorry. =(
Your tank is probably mostly cycled by now to boot, at first it may have been stress causing your platy to gobble at the air, and water being way off from what they're used to, but they're hardy fish. I don't much like the idea of risking my fish like that, but it does lessen the chances of fish dying when you add to the fully cycled tank(That happened to me with my second tank, I cycled it without fish and made sure all the levels were where they should be, then I added four mollies and three died within two days). A lot of times if you cycle the tank without fish, they can all die when you add them. But I still hope you at least cycled it for a few days/a week before using them to help, they are ahrdy fish though and can take a lot. Extra water purifier helps, but most likely it was an oxygen and stress issue for them at first. You didn't want anyone giving you grief over how you choose to cycle your tank, and I am not trying to. But if you really worried about your fish, you would know putting them in an uncycled tank is both dangerous and stressful to your fish and that caused your issues and the death of your mollies. However, mollies are also very hardy fish, I'd blame the provider, not Walmart. =p Recently most of the stores here stopped selling fish because they found out their providers were intentionally cutting corners and giving them sick or neglected fish to save themselves money and had been for a while before getting busted, I always blamed them before I found that out too. ^_~
 
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