Platy behavior

[fisher]

I am a beginner fish owner and bought a 2.5 gallon tank, with light and filter. The tank is home to two male platies. I feed them both flakes. One of the fish eats the flakes only for me to find out that he just spits them back out. At one point or another he does swallow. Is this normal behavior?

Both of the fish are equal in size. But for some reason the one that does not eat right chases the other one and sometimes snips at him. Are they just playing or is this a problem?

 

[Xavier]

1st. he's just tasting the food. my gourami does that but eats eventually.
2nd. 2 males+ one nips = problem. he's nipping because he believes that it's his territory. get 4 females.

 

[sunflower]

Hi Fisher,

Its probably a wise decision to get some more Plattys as they are schooling fish anyway. Just be careful if you do get females cos they'll breed like wild fire!

Also always make sure you have more females than males cos otherwise the females wil be constantly sressed out by the males wanting to mate!

My Plattys regularly spit their food back out before eating it again! They're just tasting it to see if they like it first!

HTH

 

[barbiya]

Hold up on buying females. Did you say it's a 2.5 gallon tank? There won't be room in there for 6 platties plus the babies they would eventually have.

And spitting out flakes sounds perfectly normal to me. When I feed flakes, I've noticed that some of my fish will taste a few flakes, spit the ones they don't like as much in favor of the ones they like best, (red seems to be the most popular!)

Good luck!

 

[canarsie11]

Do you have another tank set up?

 

[Xavier]

my mollies like the green ones and the others like the red ones

 

[fisher]

1st. he's just tasting the food. my gourami does that but eats eventually.
2nd. 2 males+ one nips = problem. he's nipping because he believes that it's his territory. get 4 females.

thanx