My Platies Are Hiding, Is This Their Usual Behavior?

Hello, I am a beginner to fish keeping and started with 2 platies and 2 mollies. Cycled the tank and water conditions are great( tested out with strips and also in the pet store). One of my platy is always hiding near the ornaments. Both platies are male so not sure what is happening. I went ahead and did a 20% water change and they are swimming but still somewhat hiding. One is sunburst and other is micky mouse. The micky mouse platy is what hiding always. Even when I feed them, they come out just for food. I have looked up in internet and many people have posted about this but they have been told the same( water changes). But the sunburst is very playful and swims across, not sure why is he hiding. Can anyone suggest me something? Should I be getting atleast 3 more platies? Maybe he is scared alone? Thinking of giving it back to the pet store but want to know if that's true before I return. Thanks in advance.

 

Can you list your current parameters, or do you not have your own test kit? Tank size? Temperature?

 

I use the API test strips to check the parameters. Tank size is 36 gallon. Temperature is 78F. ph 7.0, ammonia is 0ppm( tested in petstore), nitrite is 0ppm, nitrate is 20ppm.

 

Hmmm. Do they have clamped fins?

 

Not at all, they swim under the ornaments very normally but rarely comes out. When I first put them in my tank, they were playful and exploring after an hr or so he is just by a ornament moving his fins like normal swimming just at its place not moving around.

 

How new is he?

 

Like bought it on Monday. So basically 2 days.

 

Hey, just so you are wondering about my tank. So next day I check and the water became a little acidic around 5.5 so I did a 40% water change and wola!! My platies are now normal. One still hides when I go near the tank probably scared but if I'm looking from the safe distance, they swim around the tank and very happy. But I'm getting another isue where after I do a water change, my mollies hide inside the ornament and just moving their fins. Feels like they sleep and when I feed them, they come jumping around gettinh all the food. Can anyone suggest anything?

And my local pet store says the reason water became acidic is because I used a lot of water conditioner which tend to lower the ph. But this time I used the ammount it needed measuring correctly. After a day of aater change, mollies gets active but after the water change, they tend to act different. Any suggestion?

 

I have normal parameters in a planted tank and my platies do like to hide in the plants. They swim around for short periods of time and are come out pretty quickly during feeding times. As long as they are eating, you should be fine.

 

I don't know if I ever heard of water conditioner making the pH drop. Do you know your gh and kh?? I imagine your water might need some type of buffering. What water conditioner is it??

 

I've had 7 new platies for about 10 days now. We started the first group with 3 in a 29 gallon tank and they were nervous and hiding too. We then added 4 more and boom they all came out and even schooled a bit together. Not sure if they're cautious about the mollies or feel like there's not enough of their kind. I don't think platies are major schooling fish but I noticed their behavior changing when we increased the # of platies.

 

I have normal parameters in a planted tank and my platies do like to hide in the plants. They swim around for short periods of time and are come out pretty quickly during feeding times. As long as they are eating, you should be fine.

This has been my experience as well. Platies were some of the first fish that I got and at the time the tank was pretty bare and they were always visible. As the tank has gotten more overgrown with plants my Platies tend to stay hidden in the vegetation until it's feeding time. They're not shy then, lol. I think that in nature they'd most likely be found in and around vegetation and that's where they gravitate to in the home aquarium. Just my thoughts.