Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => General Fishkeeping advice => Topic started by: andy on November 28, 2014, 07:12:26 PM
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Hello all, hope your all well.
I adore my platy tank, (65l internal filter, good water condition, closely monitored) especially with the addition of many baby platies to the original 12. However (i bet you can guess whats coming next) after what will be the third trip to my LFS to give them a bag full of semi adult, unwanted fish. i was wondering if anyone knew of a better answer to the problem? I don't want all babies eaten or the adults stressed, but a fish that would eat of a few of the fry when they are tiny to reduce the number of my visits to the LFS. The advice from the LFS,s I've asked ranges from expensive to ridiculous.........so looking for experienced advice please. :fishy1:
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The problem you have is that fish big enough to eat all the fry for sure will also be too big for your tank.
How many female platies do you have? One answer is to rehome all the females and if you like platies to replace them with males.....
Or rehome all the males and wait 6 months or so for the females to use up their stored sperm.
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thank you for reply. thing is, i like seeing the babies in there. its the number of them that's the issue. Guess i should keep taking them to the LFS, or do as they suggest and buy another tank.
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Ah but if you buy another tan for the fry, you'll soon need another, then another ;D
The problem with getting more fish is that the tank is already three quarters stocked with just the adult platies. The community creator on here puts you at 73%. You could get a few more fish but they would have to be small and wouldn't eat many fry, if any at all. You already have 12 adult platies and I would have thought they would already eat most of the fry. Do you have lots of hiding places in the tank or is it that you have a lot of female platies giving birth on a regular basis?
I don't know what to suggest :-\
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OK, My tank is 80L, 65 is the length, oops and because of LSF advice i have 2 females to each male. usually 2 females heavily pregnant and they all seem to be breeding! Also as far as i have seen my platies dont eat the fry, even tried not feeding for a few days to see if this would change. i just read that ghost shrimp eat tiny fry, produce small amount of ammo and there eggs/fry might get eaten by platies? and trueth to this do you think?
oh, and thank you Sue for your help :)
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Ah, 80 litres is a bit bigger ;D
For once, the shop advice was right. Male platies have one track minds and can harass females to death. With a 2:1 ratio, the females get time off while the males chase another.
Livebearer fry are pretty big when they are born; much bigger then egg layer fry from the same sized adults. I can see that ghost shrimp may be able to catch and eat newly hatched egg laying fry but I don't think they'd stand a chance of catching the much bigger platy fry, unfortunately.
Livebearer females are always pregnant if they have been in the same tank as a male for around 5 seconds during the last 6 months. It is virtually impossible to stop them breeding. As you are finding, the problem is what to do with the fry. With 12 adults, I assume you have 8 females? That's a lot of fry :-\
The Community Creator puts your 80 litre tank at 60% stocked with 12 platies. The question is, what else would be suitable for the tank which would eat fry. Any shoaling fish big enough would overstock the tank as you'd need at least 6 of them. The tank is too short for loaches and most cichlids, and the smaller cichlids wouldn't eat enough fry. Honey gouramis might eat some fry but platies would probably be too boisterous as tank mates. Peacock gobies/gudgeons (same fish)? They are more bottom dwelling fish than gouramis or platies.
To be honest, in your situation I would give serious though to rehoming some of your platies. Maybe cut them down to 4f 2m. That would cut the numbers of fry in half and give you room for more, fry eating fish. But with a 65cm length, you don't have swimming room for large fish, or very active small fish.
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wow it seems this was the right place to ask a question. thank you again sue. wanna adopt some platies?lol i think it would be impossible to choose which platies to lose, so i guess ill keep restocking the LFS.