Planning on Platy only tank, fell in love with guppies

[Fishdude32]

So I have a 20 gallon tank that I setup with fish around September and started with 2 female Platys and added one more yesterday. I was planning on getting 2 rather than 1 but the guppies really caught my eye. I was wondering if you guys even recommend that I mix guppies and Platys in my tank given that the guppies tend to be smaller, wether I should get male or female, but and how long I should wait before I get more fish.

 

[veggieshark]

Technically, platies and guppies together are not a problem. But when you keep them in adequate numbers (or let the ones you have breed), they can easily over populate your 20g.

If the guppy strain you like is too fancy, they may be fragile and you may get disappointed with the difficulty in keeping them healthy.

 

[jdhef]

Has the tank fully cycled?

Putting guppies and platy's together in a tank shopuld be fine.

Both guppies and platy's are live bearers and reproduce rather prolificly (but not with each other). So if you mix sexes with either species you will end up with a lot of fry. Many will probably get eaten, but some will survive, so you need a plan on what to do with all the little ones.

In a fully cycled tank, I like to wait 10-14 days between fish additions. This give the bacteria colony a chance to catch up to the increased bioload, before adding more fish and increasing the boiload once again

 

[Fishdude32]

Has the tank fully cycled?

Putting guppies and platy's together in a tank shopuld be fine.

Both guppies and platy's are live bearers and reproduce rather prolificly (but not with each other). So if you mix sexes with either species you will end up with a lot of fry. Many will probably get eaten, but some will survive, so you need a plan on what to do with all the little ones.

In a fully cycled tank, I like to wait 10-14 days between fish additions. This give the bacteria colony a chance to catch up to the increased bioload, before adding more fish and increasing the boiload once again

Hi, thanks for the help, my tank has just recently fully cycled I was using prime everyday as I didn’t realize my tank wasn’t fully cycled and the fish did just fine. I have stopped dosing prime as of today but am testing the water everyday. I kind of want to do male only guppies as they have very pretty colors and I don’t want babies. Do you think make only will work or will there be aggression

 

[Akeath]

Platies and Guppies get along fine and have very similar water preferences, so they make good tankmates. Male only Guppies is a good idea so they won't overpopulate your tank. Males usually aren't aggressive with each other, and are social enough with each other that they do best with at least 3 Guppies together, although you can get more.

 

[LizStreithorst]

Go for it. I was going to suggest you get males, too. They can be very lovely, especially the long fined ones.

 

[Fishdude32]

Go for it. I was going to suggest you get males, too. They can be very lovely, especially the long fined ones.

I have another question, while they aren’t the same species, I know live bearers can get let’s just say a little rowdy with the opposite gender, should I get only 1 male guppy for now and get some females as I have only three female Platys or will it be fine to throw in 3 male guppies.

 

[LizStreithorst]

If you don't mind a population explosion of guppies go ahead and get a couple of lady guppies.