Question About Adding Platies

Currently I have 3 rainbow platies, 2 males and 1 female in my 30 gallon tank. I want to add 2 more females after my cycling is done, but my question is do they need to be the same variety of platy or can I mix and match them and still achieve the same more peaceful results? The two males are not very aggressive right now, but they seem to be getting more chase-y every day. I saw some sunburst platies at my LFS that I would love to add, but I'm not sure if it will help or hurt.

Thanks!

 

You can add any kind of platy with them and still have good results. Platies can be kept with any other peaceful community fish especialy its own kind.

 

Platy's are very "community" oriented. Many fish can be put with them. And it will only make them happier to have a few more platy buddies! It seems that with many fish, the more you have of a same/similar group, the less-aggressive they are. Of course, take that with a grain of salt, as it is definitely not always the case.

 

Hello!

I've never seen a rainbow platy! Do you have any pictures?

You can add any type of platy; they just see each other as platies. It doesn't matter if you get sunburst, sunburst wags, red wags, painted platies, gold Mickey Mouse platies, etc. The main thing is to get the male/female ratio right. As long as you don't mind lots of fry and you don't care whether the fry come from different colored platies, you're good to go.

I have two sunburst platies, one male, one female, in separate tanks right now. But they can see each other LOL and it's like "love through the glass" haha.

Keep us posted. And if you can post pictures, that would be fantastic!

 

Hello!

I've never seen a rainbow platy! Do you have any pictures?

You can add any type of platy; they just see each other as platies. It doesn't matter if you get sunburst, sunburst wags, red wags, painted platies, gold Mickey Mouse platies, etc. The main thing is to get the male/female ratio right. As long as you don't mind lots of fry and you don't care whether the fry come from different colored platies, you're good to go.

I have two sunburst platies, one male, one female, in separate tanks right now. But they can see each other LOL and it's like "love through the glass" haha.

Keep us posted. And if you can post pictures, that would be fantastic!

Oh! I missed this reply. For some reason I forgot I'd started this thread. I actually have two different varieties of rainbow I think. One has a yellower body than the other two.

Here's the yellowish one:



Here's the more silver one:



And here are the two doing their puffed out chest male thing so you can see them next to each other:



Sorry they are a little blurry, camera phone doesn't like taking close-up pictures in the tank. I'll have to figure out how to get better ones eventually.


Thanks for the replies everyone! I ended up getting three new females, 2 sunburst and a wagtail. They are getting along much better now.

 

Of course, I spoke too soon. Today I caught the males bickering again. They do the posing thing in the picture above most of the time then every once in a while they dart at each other. They aren't actually hurting each other that I can tell. I have a few more days where I can bring one of them back, any opinions if I should or not? They don't chase the females at all, which is the more common complaint I've read about. Is it okay if they are doing this or is it the kind of thing that will only escalate from here?

 

Hello!

So now, you have 6 platies? Is that two males and four females? Sounds good. Couple quick questions:

Do all of your fish look healthy? No clamped fins, white spots, sitting on the bottom, gasping for air, hanging near the top?

Did you quarantine the new platies before adding them? If so, for how long?

If you didn't QT them, then what may POSSIBLY be going on is that the new fish are just getting used to the setup. They are swimming around, but haven't joined the "official" group just yet. Perhaps reduce the time that the lighting is on, as that will reduce stress.
Of course, sure that the water parameters are clean and corrected.

Keep us posted!

 

You can add any platy in with the others. They don't need to all be the same specific type.

As to bickering and such, make sure when mixing species you have at least two to three females for each male to keep down on competition. Less then that and the males may get aggressive in trying to get more females for themselves.

 

Yup, I'm up to 6 platies, 2 male and 4 female.

Yes, they all look healthy, swimming and eating as normal. The males do the "pose off" thing every once in a while and that's about the only strange behavior I see. The girls are all very mellow. They do tend to stick more to their own 3 group than mingle, so maybe you're right about them needing more time to adjust. I'll try a shorter time on the lights for a few days to see if that helps. Maybe as I add more fish and there are more distractions in the tank things will get better. They are very curious about everything that goes on in there, so more fish can only help I think. I just don't want to end up with fish that fight all the time.

I don't currently have a QT tank, so they went right in after slowly acclimating them over about two hours. It's on the list of things to get but the husband isn't the fishy sort, so convincing him I need yet another tank when I haven't even filled this one is an uphill battle.

Tested the water again today and it still looks good even with the added bioload from the new fish. I'll be testing daily all this week to make sure.

 

OK, all sounds good and looks like you are on top of things.

From the pictures you posted, it looks like you have a very colorful set up. Enjoy your fish!

 

Another good round of testing (0/0/<5ppm) and today the two males seem to be best friends--no posing or chasing at all. I really don't know what to think anymore. It did seem like the new females were much more part of the group so perhaps that's what was going on after all. I may never know with these jokers.

 

Another good round of testing (0/0/<5ppm) and today the two males seem to be best friends--no posing or chasing at all. I really don't know what to think anymore. It did seem like the new females were much more part of the group so perhaps that's what was going on after all. I may never know with these jokers.

Ah yes, the fun of watching fish antics!

 

Can't take the bickering anymore. I'm returning one of the males tomorrow. Shall it be the yellow or the silver? The yellow is prettier by far, but he's the more aggressive of the two.

 

My husband managed to talk me out of it. He seems to think the place we got the fish would probably just throw him away. It wasn't a very nice place.

 

This morning after feeding time they had a fight for five minutes straight, chasing each other around the tank and lunging at each other. It was really terrible. For the first time I could tell it was actually upsetting the other fish so I decided to take the silver male back. I thought the fish store would give me a hard time about it, but I explained that I really thought one of them was going to kill the other. They said they usually don't take live fish back, but he looked healthy. I was sad to see him go, but it's really best for everyone. Tank has been very peaceful since I took him out this morning.