Good Advice On Platies

[Ceres]

I recently got platies and I'd like to know the best advice on how to keep them. I have a 10 gallon tank, no live plants, 2 males, 3 females, a heater that I keep at a steady 80 degrees, and I change the water two to three times a week. When I change the water it's 25% water change(the tank is 3 weeks old by now, it sat without fish prior to that for a week). I feed them flake food in the morning and blood worms at night, though I have suspected they were getting constipated when the color of their feces started changing color so I did want some advice on that in particular. Should I cut down on the bloodworms to every other day? Thanks for any advice and what I should do different with my tank! I'd also like to know what I'm doing well!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hi there, yeah bloodworms every day is a bit much to be honest. our fish get them more as a weekly treat!

you need to be careful not to overfeed, it's very easy to go overboard and give them too much, you only need to feed a small amount once a day and give them one 'fast' day a week where you don't feed them.

however more important than this is that the tank will currently be going through a fish-in cycle, have you got a test kit? if so can you tell us what the water readings are at the moment?

Have a read of the link in my sig 'the nitrogen cycle' then follow the link within it to 'fish in cycling' and this will explain it all to you.

 

[rhostog]

Your platies will enjoy peas - cook them (microwave is easiest), then remove the skin and squish the soft insides between your fingers. This will help stop them getting constipated, and they really like them too. Our platies also like tablet food that sinks to the bottom of the tank, and even eat algae wafers that are meant for some of the other fish.

You could turn your heater down a bit - 75 deg would be fine, even a bit lower if you like.

I think platies are great fish - colourful, not aggressive, easy to keep, and if you choose, easy to breed. Good luck with yours!

I'd definitely follow Miss Wiggle's advice about cycling and check out the links.

 

[Ceres]

No I don't have a test kit. I'll have to get one as soon as I can though. We live in a small town and our Wal-mart is small too. When we travel out of town I'll have to make a stop at Petco to get a test kit though!

As for aggressive one of the platies is a bit aggressive. At one point I did have two guppies in there but they had died only a few days after being in the tank. I thought that I either did something wrong or it was because they were Wal-mart fish(I didn't think fish could take the stress of an hour long trip from Petco). But after a few days I noticed my orange Mickey Mouse platy was quite mean. He was chasing the other two platies that remained in the tank and nipping. I looked up online for solutions and found that I had one female in the tank so I thought that may have been his problem so I bought two more females. He calmed down for a while but now he chases everyone away from the one female he likes and won't leave her alone! lol Heck, he won't even let the other male pick from the remaining females! Is it possible he killed the guppies? He is quite big and the guppies were smaller than him.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Ceres and welcome to TFF!

You've done a great job with your description of your situation! And you've not gone overboard with your new tank, so that is all good. Good attention, wanting to get some good live food.

Bloodworms should be used sparingly, as MW says, and peas would be a great addition of variety as rhostog has outlined. Bloodworms, in addition to being too rich for the fish's system if given too much can leave really strong oil slicks on the tank water, yet another reason for only occasional use. A good high quality flake food is a good basic to center these other more occasional things around I think.

You are probably very lucky that you somehow established an early habit of the multiple water changes per week that you mention. Without you're explicitly knowing, this has probably been providing the some of the most urgent action needed for what we call a "Fish-In" cycling situation, as MW has pointed out. Here on our beginner forum, you'll be able to learn all of what's behind this "cycling" stuff we're talking about and become an expert on it yourself. Its absolutely core to beginning to know the hobby well. Five platies in a ten gallon will be a significant fish load for a fish-in cycle, so its reasonable to expect that this is going to warrant some serious attention.

While the water changes are the action that's going to keep the water healthy for those fish, you won't know exactly what is or what's not being actually accomplished by the water changes unless you have a test kit, so this ends of being one of the first things beginners need. Most of us like and use the API Freshwater Master Test Kit, which has a series of bottles of reagents and test tubes, with plenty of good instructions and this allows you to measure the ammonia, nitrite(NO2), pH and nitrate(NO3) in your tank water. The liquid-based test kit like this is necessary for the level of accuracy it provides, paper strip tests just not being good enough.

Good luck reading the cycling links in MW's signature and we members will be hear to hopefully answer any and all questions to the best of our ability!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Ceres]

Thank you for the welcome! About how many peas should I feed them? I'll try that today and how many times a week?

 

[rhostog]

As with other food, give them what they'll eat in a couple of minutes. If your platies are anything like mine, they're real pigs and will over-eat given the chance. I'd guess 2 peas, but start with 1 and see how quickly they eat it. I try to give mine peas once or twice a week, and to vary their food between flake, sinking pellets etc. There is a livebearer section on this forum with some very knowledgeable platy experts, so might be worth consulting there on the best diet.

Interesting about your male platy - one of my male platies is also quite possessive of one female, and chases away any other fish, male or female. (I don't know how common this is, as I didn't think they were supposed to pair up like that!) Do you have plants in the tank, or somewhere for the fish to hide if he gets too persistent?

Sorry to hear about your guppies - it's quite likely that they died for other reasons, to do with water conditions in the new tank, or the shock of acclimatising. Guppies can be quite variable in quality, and the weaker ones do sometimes just die.

You can also get test kits over the internet, from eBay or various internet shops. Get a good liquid test kit for ammonia and nitrite; if you can, then kits for nitrate and pH are also handy. The kits aren't cheap but should last you a long time, and will help prevent problems and keep your fish happy and healthy.