Fancy Guppies and Platys in same tank.

[jasno999]

I had fancy guppies in my 10 gallon tank and they have been goign strong for a while. I am on the 3 generation and they are having fry themselves now.

I decided to add a few plattys to the tank. I exchanged some fancy guppies for some plattys with my girlfriend.

I was wonderign what you guys and girls thought about havign these two different types of live bearers i nthe same tank? Do you htink both will breed?

 

[lee_an]

I had fancy guppies in my 10 gallon tank and they have been goign strong for a while. I am on the 3 generation and they are having fry themselves now.

I decided to add a few plattys to the tank. I exchanged some fancy guppies for some plattys with my girlfriend.

I was wonderign what you guys and girls thought about havign these two different types of live bearers i nthe same tank? Do you htink both will breed?

Congrats.I also have my 3rd generation babies,with a fifth of the first generation alive.All came from the old female who died after giving birth to 30 and 11 survived to adulthood.I think they will not breed together,if they did,it will be because they do not have members of the opposite sex and resort to crossbreeding.The fry are unlikely to live

 

[ferrikins]

I have 3 types of livebearer togethet, and no they will not interbreed.

 

[jasno999]

I know they will not interbreed. That was not my questions at all. Sorry if it came across that way. What I was saying was how will fry do of each type of fish if you have adult fish of each type in the same tank?

I gave them some hiding places but there are a lot of fish in my 10gall tank. My girlfriend has them in a 29 gallon tall tank and she has some big gravle so they are able to hide in the gravle for protection. My tank has sand so I provided some real and fake plants.

 

[ferrikins]

Yeah you did confuss me.

I dout any fry will suvive in any tank where there are adults.

But raising fry together is fine, I've done it in there own tank.

 

[enchanted]

Yeah you did confuss me.

I dout any fry will suvive in any tank where there are adults.

But raising fry together is fine, I've done it in there own tank.

I have to disagree with this. It depends on the tank, how many hiding places there are, how many adults, etc...

Both my parents had a hell of a time with guppys and platys in keeping the fry down in the main tanks. And they weren't even trying to breed them. When they say put a male and female guppy together and just add water, they weren't lieing.

 

[kitty falol]

I have a tank of just guppies and as I haven't got room for any more tanks I just let them have all their fry in the tank in a sort of survival of the fittest kind of way.

I started off with tons of plant coverage and about 6 or 7 were surviving from each batch. I then cut my plants back, realising that I was soon going to be overrun and now I'd say that at least 1 or 2 feisty fry survive from each batch, just hiding under ornaments, or at the base of the plants.

I've noticed that when the fry are about 7 days old they are a little too big to be eaten by my guppies, but I'm not sure what the case would be if there were platties in there as well. I imagine that they'd have to hide away for a little bit longer, but I'm no expert.

Maybe the platty population would keep the guppy fry population down as they are smaller and can be eaten for a longer period, but I'm just theorising

 

[willywonka099]

Well space is obviously an issue .... guppies and plattys in a ten gallon is a little over board unless you have like a trio of plattys and 3 or 4 guppies at most ..... fry will survive people always so "Idoubt any fry will survive", If you get a canabalistic fish than maybe but people act like fish "HUNT" the fry this isn't accurate at all if a fry swims near then yes maybe it will chase and eat it I have seen this but plattys are a less canabalistic livebearer ........ bb mollies will usually not eat fry at all after a couple of them at all .... if you have guppies and give all of the fish some time too have a couple of batches yes you will have fry .... A bigger tank would be a very wise solution ... And babies need bunched plants not usually java ferns and things ..... Mine always hide under a big piece of slate in the gravel and at the top ... And last time I got 22 fry and 3 were just sitting at the top and were not being chased at all

 

[jasno999]

10 gallons is fine. People worry about over-populating tanks and all that stuff. I understandit and I agree with it but in this take we are talking abotu small fish. There are a lot of them but the tank has good filtration. IT has a Biowheel 125 that is good for tanks up to 35 gallons. SO I get a lot of filtration and water movment.

I also have a sand bottom so it keeps a lot of the poop on top and allwos it to break down and head torwards the filter.

I also just added a bunch of fake plants and I have some ornaments in there for fish to hide in and swim around. What I noticed was two things:

1) IF I turn the filter off for a few days I will have guppy babies.

2) Now that there are more hiding places I have a few that are surviving.


I had gone a long time (months) without fry because they were all being eaten but not anymore.

I am not worried about the over crrowding or the types of fish mixed together. They are hapy and healthy. I think filtration is good and until there is a problem I am not goign to fiddle with anything.

Oh I love how they swim against the current that the filter creates when it dumps water back into the tank.