The Cookie Crew

I used to have endlers (again hard water fish in soft water  ) and they always behaved like that. They would all chase one, then they'd change direction and all chase another. It was like a game of tag in reverse. They never made contact with each other, just this constant swimming round. Female endlers were different - they just swam quietly round scouring the substrate for specks of food.

Keep an eye on them though, you never know what's going on in a fish's mind   

Managed to get a shot of all three in the same frame...  A bit much motion blur, but not too bad...

This has got me thinking now ! I could put some Variatus Platies in my pond instead of the Odessa Barbs. These three look lovely.

Great to see all 3 of them together. Glad that they are settling quickly.     

I briefly considered livebearers for my tank until I read the water parameters. My water is way too soft. 

When I converted from goldfish- to tropical-keeping and had a look round the LFS, it was all the livebearers which attracted me. Thanks to using this website to do my research, I realised it was not going to be possible. I couldn't recall the exact requirements, though, so double-checked the other day when I saw how lovely TC's first platy was, but realised it's definitely way off the radar for me too. 

Sorry to hear that the squabbling is a problem.

Before I say anything else I just want to point out that I have not kept a group of male platies, but I have kept the v. platies, but in a mixed group, with only 1 male, as my first fish. The original fish have all passed, but I still have 2 females which are the offspring of the original fish. I will say that the behaviour of the male towards the female he decide to breed with was a tad disturbing as it seemed quite violent and unrelenting. This may just be the "language" that they use.

Squabbling - I would expect a group of males to squabble to establish some sort of pecking order. Keep an eye on them to check for any damage to the fish, or to see if there is any increase in the squabbling. The only thing I can relate it to is the group of panda garras in my river tank. They bicker like siblings, sometimes they will happily share a rock, and feed together, other times they fight, barge into each other, and case each other around the tank. The rest of the fish species don't tend to take much notice.

The other thing is that as well as individual fish having their own personalities, different platy varieties may also have slightly different personalities. Is the smaller one also the one that is a different colour?

Obviously returning the fish is the final solution to the problem, and I can't say if the squabbling is temporary or not, but do they ever seem to get along any more? Are they all ok together at feeding time? Are the other fish species ok with the platy behaviour? Lot's to discuss before any final decisions are made.

Some good, pertinent, questions there guys...  This morning's report:

Today, most notably with the tank lights off, they are all three swimming together still, in a little shoal type affair...  There doesn't appear to be any nipping, but the original fella is still swimming after, or closely following, the smaller one of the two newer blue ones...  This original one is the more persistent in harassing the others, but the larger of the two newer blue ones is not at all far behind...  Not seen any of the sharper/faster movements this morning, it's more like constantly following the smaller one... 

The smaller one hasn't lost colour and is still looking like he wants to swim with the other two - which is sorta odd considering he is the main victim of this behaviour...  Certainly not hiding away...  Feeding time is fine, they all concentrate on eating as much as they can, as fast as they can...!!!  I would at this point say that they don't look especially stressed - I do though, lol...!!!

One thing I have noticed and have noticed before actually, which is that in the presence of squabbling fish, the Cardinals and Pristellas tend to copy the behaviour a little...  They have done this for a while now, originally copying the Red Phantom Tetras, but as the RPTs have slowly calmed a bit that too spread to the other Tetras...  With the new Platies bickering such a lot more than the RPTs, it has set all the Tetras off that little bit again...

I did choose all males deliberately, on the grounds that I was told that it's not unusual to buy females and find that one or more of them already be pregnant and finish up with a bunch of newborns in the tank even with no adult males present... 

I desperately hope they do settle down into a peaceful groove as they are so lovely looking...  They steal the show, visually, even more so than the Cardinals - and that's not easy to do of course...   So, fingers crossed that this situation is temporary... 

My harlies fight when I made new additions. In fact I have had a death within a week  of the last two times I've added new fish. At the last addition, I'd hoped that adding a lot of fish, smaller fish and different species might reduce the hierarchy fights. But I still found a body a few days later. I'm not sure what it was because the snails had been snacking, but there was enough orange red colour for me think it was a harlie or espeii rasbora. Harlequin makes more sense from the fighting, but I think it was too small and I can account for all the harlies. But it makes less sense for it to be an older espeii (the new ones were a lot smaller, so I know it wasn't one of them).

I'm pretty sure it wasn't a fiveband barb.

Edit: my point is that even good community fish can change their normal behaviour when they get new tank mates - until things settle down. I don't think your platies sound like they're fighting enough for you to find a body!!

Through the course of the day and especially since the lights came on @ 2:00pm, the Platies have been hard at it again, constantly squabbling and looking increasingly more aggressive actually...  Then to top it off, one of them had an exploratory nip at one of my Amano shrimp...!!! 

That sealed their fate and they have to go...!!!  Gutted to be honest right now, but I definitely can't accept newcomers to the tank having a go at established residents like that...  Only question is, whether or not to keep the original orange one and just return the other two newer ones - or write this off as a failed experiment...?

One factor that points to writing them off is that my water is in that "moderately hard" bracket @ 8.77dGH and the Platies are Variatus if I'm not mistaken, and they like water a little harder than mine really... 

Definitely gutted, but I just can't handle fighting fish in the tank, especially once they start pecking at my Amanos...!!!

In fishkeeping terms, I would say your water is not even moderately hard maybe just slightly hard. Your 'moderately hard' sounds like what a water company would say, and their definitions are not the same as in fish keeping.

Personally I would say moderately hard starts at 10 dH, with hard starting at 12 or 13.


I would use this as the excuse to take all the platies back. Getting some females - at least 2 females for every male - would probably calm them down, but 6 females would have an awful lot of fry, every month.