New to keeping fish!

[Platygirl1497]

Hi all, I'm new to keeping fish, I've cycled the tank, researched the best fish for me and settled on V. Platy.

I've got live plants and lots of little hidey holes for my new friends. I'm just wondering if anyone can give me some advice that I might not have researched? I'm going to get some meat for them to eat (dried blood worms etc.)

They seem to be doing very well at this moment in time. Can anyone give me some advice on keeping them happy and healthy?

 

[snork6]

Welcome to the forum! It's always wonderful to see someone who has done their research before getting fish Just so we can make sure your water is okay could you test it and give us the results for each of these?

Please provide the following readings.

Ammonia

Nitrite

Nitrate

PH

Hardness

Water temp

 

[Essjay]

Just to make sure you have read the right info - have you cycled the tank with ammonia? And do you have hard water with a high pH?

In addition, you should be aware that variatus platies are omnivores not carnivores. They need a good quality commercial flake or pellet food with bloodworm etc being fed once a week as a treat. If you get dried bloodworm etc they will need to be rehydrated in a bit of tank water before they are put in the tank.

 

[Ch4rlie]

As mentioned already, some water parameter readings would be most useful indeed in helping you to ensure the tank and water is suitable for your platies.

Platies are hard water fish so this is why it's important to know what your water parameters are, especially gH and kH basically water hardness levels. This can be found online on your local water authority website under water quality / hardness. There should be a number of readings as well as various units of measurements. If your unsure, simply either take a screenshot or copy and paste the link on here and we can help out.

One other thing, you have not mentioned what size your tank is. It's pretty important that these platies have adequate swimming space as they are pretty active fish.

A tank length of at least 2 feet would be minimum really, the bigger the better actually.

Some more information on v platy for you

http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/xiphophorus-variatus/