Can these babies still grow?

[hywaydave]

I've had these two yellow and black baby platys for a year now and the pink one for about 9 months, they live in a 5 gallon tank with a snail and amano shrimp. As you can see they have not grown very quickly, I know it's due to the size of the tank. I change 20% of the water weekly. I have been starting to feed them more often as I now have seven new guppy fry in that little breeder in the pic and read that fry should be fed 3-5 times a day and perform water changes more often. I haven't been able to find the time to do more water changes, but I make sure to never go more than a week without one. The guppy fry have grown quite a bit in the past 3 weeks and I'm thinking about releasing them into the tank with the others.

Are these 1 year old platys stunted for life, or will they continue to grow at a slow rate? I have a 53 gallon community tank where they originally came from, and I'd love to return them there someday.

 

[emeraldking]

If they've been like this for this time period you've mentioned, they'll probably stay stunted. There could be many reasons why fry are stunted. For instance, low quality of food, lacking sufficient space, carrying a dwarf gene, an aggressive environment, etc...

 

[hywaydave]

No aggression, just babies in a 5 gallon tank, they're fed aqueon flake food, obviously crushed into powder when they were little.

 

[emeraldking]

No aggression, just babies in a 5 gallon tank, they're fed aqueon flake food, obviously crushed into powder when they were little.

I don't know their sex but in Xiphophorus (where swordtails and platies belong to) species, when males have developed a gonopodium, they stop growing no matter how small or how big those males are. A 5g tank is not so big but it's big enough to let those few platies grow up to their potential.

I don't feed fry that many times a day as you do nor a more frequent water change and they grow up just normal. And I'm keeping and breeding livebearers ever since the 1970's. So, I'm not doing the same thing as what you may have read on the internet.

 

[hywaydave]

Interesting, I was only feeding them morning and night until recently when I read you should feed fry more often. I have 7 guppies in that breeder and I'm feeding them 3-4 times per day and they seem to be getting bigger rather quickly, although I will be transferring them soon to a new 10g QT tank I just set up last week. We'll see how fast they grow.

 

[Alice B]

to grow fish quickly feed daily and do daily water changes to hold nitrates down. But those have been there a while.

 

[emeraldking]

Interesting, I was only feeding them morning and night until recently when I read you should feed fry more often. I have 7 guppies in that breeder and I'm feeding them 3-4 times per day and they seem to be getting bigger rather quickly, although I will be transferring them soon to a new 10g QT tank I just set up last week. We'll see how fast they grow.

Of course, when you feed multiple times a day, they grow up faster. But they also go faster through their lifespan. If you keep the frequency of feeding a bit down, they grow up in a normal pace and they will be stronger than those which are growing faster. That's how it works.

 

[Naughts]

You might want to try de-worming them.