What Fish To Put In My Tank?

With your water you have so many fish to choose from 

It is neither too hard and alkaline for most fish that prefer soft acid water, nor too soft and acidic for those species that like hard alkaline water. You just need to avoid those species which must have soft acidic water (some tetras and some south American cichlids) and those which must have hard alkaline water (Rift Lake cichlids and mollies).

Do you plan on keeping both male and female platies? If you do, you could soon be over run with fry and in a 63 litre tank that would not take very long. You can keep just males, or just females, though with females you need to bear in mind that if they've been in a tank with a male longer than about 10 seconds they'll be carrying sperm and can have fry every month for 6 moths or so.


As for what to go with them, there is just so much choice. One thing you could do is visit all your local shops and make a note of all the fish you like the looks of. Then go to Seriously Fish and look them up. Check for suitability for your water and tank size and any behavioural problems.
Seriously Fish sometimes gives hardness in German deg, sometimes in ppm. There is a section on here called fish calculators and that has a degrees <-> ppm conversion.

I haven't tried it myself, but yes, I have read some people have problems with all male platies.


Of course you could do nothing for any fry. Don't make any attempts to save any. That will reduce the numbers you'd need to find homes for.

Also, if I did go with platies then do you think 8 is overstocking the tank?  I could maybe buy 2-4 with a view to keeping some of the fry until there are 8 in the tank (which won't take long I know lol), providing the platy fry aren't males...which I'd have to address when they are old enough for me to be able to tell.

I have some variatus platies. They were the first fish I bought, along with 2 zebra danios, as recommended by staff from Pets at Home, before I'd done any proper research beyond tank cycling. I lost one of the original ones early on to swim bladder issues, and soon realised that their tanks and numbers were unsuitable.
I now have 2 temperate tanks.
Daddy fish is in one, with some WCMM and peppered cories.
Mummy fish and her two girls are in the larger tank, with Boo Boo (the other original v. platy), the 2 zebra danios, some leopard danios, and some peppered cories.
I didn't even realise that the fish had been breeding in their previous tanks until I was moving the decor to the larger tanks, then I found 2 little fry hiding under a moss ball. That was when I got a seperate tank for Daddy fish as I wasn't sure how many babies I could deal with in the future.     

Are you using the Community Creator on here or a stocking calculator on another site?


According to the calculator on here, the tank measurements you gave in the first post - 60 x 30 x 35 cm - means the tank is 63 litres.

Then entering 63 litres, 60 cm long and internal filter in the Community Creator gives you 21 male guppies as 100% stocked, not 8.
Even taking 10% off the volume to allow for substrate and decor (that is, entering 56 litres in the CC) 18 male guppies would make the tank 96% stocked.
With 56 litres and 60 cm long, 8 male guppies comes to 42%.

Did you use the thing called Stocking Calculator in the Article titled Fish Stocking Levels?

There is a better one than that called the Community Creator. It is found at the bottom of all the Fish Profiles. Look at the one for male guppy. Scroll down to bottom of the page and fill in the tank data - volume, length and filter type. Now click on Add this fish to my tank just above the calculator. You can use the up and down buttons in Quantity to increase the number.

You can save the data you enter but you have to log in to do that, and the log in is separate from the forum so you have to register with the CC separately.



There is also a section in the menu bar at the top called Fish Calculators. Aquarium Volume is the one to use for calculating your tank's volume from the measurements.