gonzo127

Ok guys and girls I am hoping you might be able to give me some help as I am really confused

When I first got my 60L tank I went and got platys and Guppies, the LFS didn’t tell me how prolific breeders they where and so I ended up with males and females, who promptly had lots of babies.

Because I could see we where going to be very over stocked in my tank I went out a brought a second tank 35L for the males and then tried to separate them, but I had to wait for a little bit for the babies to grow a little bit until they where of a better size before the LFS would accept them from me.

Anyway this worked to a degree but the odd male slipped through the net and we have kept having the odd batch of babies which has kept my tank overstocked for the last 6-8 months, however surprisingly I did not lose a single fish! Other than some of the babies that got eaten.

Anyways I managed to get it sorted a month or so ago and had some time off where I could make the multiple runs to the LFS to get rid of the ones I didn’t want

this has basically allowed me to get my tank down from ~20 Platys and 2 Guppies (I know it was seriously over stocked at times) down to 2 Platy’s and the 2 Guppies (all female) and at this point I brought 6 Neon’s (love the little critters) which promptly went in my second tank (which was my male tank (and you might remember I said about getting my son a fish to go in there but that’s another story)) I quarantined them for a week and when they all still looked healthy and non had died I transferred them to my main tank.

This it seems to have been my problem, within about 5 days one of my Platy’s had died, I just put that down to bad luck, I have now had a call to be told that my other platy is now dead.

I am really confused, the Guppies seem to be loving the extra room they have had since I got rid of the other platys and got the neon’s, all the neon’s seem to be really happy and are zipping around the tank like no bodies business, I just cant understand why the platys have just died.

I do not know my exact water parameters at the moment as I am at work, however I did a 30% water change 3 days ago as my levels where
ammonia = 0
nitrite = 0
nitrate =18
As it was my birthday on the 21st so I didn’t want to do a water change then (I usual do a change when it reaches 20), but I cant imagine it is bad as its only been 3 days with a lot less fish than it used to have

Can anyone think of anything that might be wrong as I really don’t want to lose any others, and I know my daughter is going to ask when we can get another fish and I don’t want to get anything else if there is a problem in my tank

Cheers and sorry its such a long post

Lucy

My first thought would be you added too many fish at once, but it doesn't look like it effected your water.

Neons can get pretty nippy, any chance they were being picked on?
Although it seems odd they'd go after just the platys.

agabr123

i'm sorry about your fish

about how often does your tank hit 20ppm nitrates? you should probably try to do 25-40% water changes weekly if your nitrates get higher less often than that. oh, and did you test your tank before or after you did the 30% water change?

did you notice anything wrong with your platys before? discoloration, white spots, fungus, staying near the top or bottom of the tank, "gasping" for air, acting strangely, etc?

gonzo127

Hi and thanks for the response

I always test the water before I do the water change, so that I know when to do the change, and it usually takes between 1 - 2 weeks before it hits 20 again, depending on how enthusiastic my daughter gets with the food :s

As for weird, before I added the Neon’s I would not say so, since the Neon’s they both took to the gravel and spent most of their time down there before they passed away,

and I did think about the nipping but it just seems strange that they would go for the platy’s and not the guppies especially with those lovely fins on the Guppies

Fishlover423

have u checked the water?

catfishlover123

I am sorry about your fish. I remember when I lost my molly. It was so sad to see the other fish pecking at it.

gonzo127

water parameters
ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 13

all other fish still seem fine and are all active, also just found a single Fry well not fry as such since it is about 1cm long now