Fish Everywhere! Ahh!

[notyourstar7]

Okay. Some of you guys really helped me out back in March when my "male" platy had babies.

I'm going to proudly admit I am 110% novice in the fish department but I think over the past few months I've been holding my own pretty well.

Anyways, here's my problem. I started out with three sunset dwarf platies in a 1.5 gal from petsmart. The fish lady told me that three would be fine even though I thought you should have five or more together. Anyways, I didn't ( still don't! ) know a lot about fish so I decided to go with that. A couple weeks after I got an african dwarf frog and put him in his own 1.5 gal away from the fish.

Then my three fish had babies. Well, one of them did anyway! I specifically requested three of the same gender when I first bought them because I imagined fish eggs everywhere. Little did I know that they were livebearers.

So then my fish was hugely preggers, but only managed to have 12 fry before dying from a very strange thing. It looked like she exploded from her stomach and it was white, like a bomb went off. Really weird.. she was in her own 5 gallon tank for quite some time before giving birth so I'm not sure what happened.

So then I still have two male platies, now 12 fry, I added a frog so 2 african dwarf frogs, and a friend from school abandoned their three glolite tetras with me.

I KNOW this is too much for a 5 gal. So the frogs are in their 1.5 gal, I lost 4 fry (its like they disappeared, maybe they were eaten?), so now I'm left with 8 fry and two big platies (both male) and three glolite tetras.

I did have a snail problem too, from live plants. But I put a piece of lettuce in and got rid of all the snailies.

I do 15% water changes every day in the 5 gal to try to keep the ammonia under control. So today I went out to walmart and bought a 2 gal tank to put the two male platies and the three glolites in.

I do NOT want anymore babies and the petstore won't take any back (go figure!).

So now for my questions (you guys are probably thinking, finally!). I separated the two males because from what I can see all 8 fry are girlies. There is one fry in question so I'm debating on whether or not the he/she should be moved in with the other ones. They aren't really fry anymore I guess, they are about 3 months old now.

Here's the questions:

1. Are the frogs fine in the 1.5 gal alone?
2. Are the tetras and the two male platies okay in the 1.5 gal?
3. Are 8 platies too much for the 5 gal?
4. Any ideas on what to do with the he/she fish? Its hard to tell, it looks fat and round (the fin) but then not as fat and round as all the others.
5. What do I do with the fish if these are overcrowded? I can't afford the maintenance on a 10 gallon tank nor do I have the room for one. Is it okay to ship fish? Anyone want free platies?

I don't know why petsmart can't separate the male fish from the female fish to stop people from having too many fish babies. I hate to know what people who don't care about the fry do to them.

Thanks for reading guys!! Please feel free to critic me wherever you see fit.

Here are the pics of the 5 gal, 2 gal, and 1.5 gal.

 

[lilfishie]

right you really should get a bigger tank but for now we'll have to try make this work. how old are the babies? are you sure the other 2 are male? how many frogs do you have and are they African Dwarf frongs or African Clawed frogs? they are actually neon tetras not glowlights. is the 2 gal setup?
righ tif you don't know how to sex the fish then use this drawing to help

Purple is the female anal fin, as you can see it is fan shaped.
Red is the females gravid spot where she will carry any fry.
Blue is the males anal fin as you can see its a complete different shape.

you will need to seperate the 2 sexes to avoid more fry, put the one you have more of in the 5 gal, then seperate the rest between the 2 and 1.5 gal

Do you know anyone near you that would be willing to take a few for free or pay a little for them?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I would say that all tanks are too small for fully mature platys, i would advise at least a 10gal for platys. What abouts do you live in the world? You could try rehoming the platys on the forum on the buy/sell/swap section. Same goes for the neons and glolites even though they are small fish, its regularly advised that they be in groups of at least 6 since they are shoaling fish, so a 5gal would be too small for a shoal of neons or glolites if you are going by the 1inch of fish per gal rule of thumb, again i would personally advise at least 10gallons for keeping shoaling fish like neons.
Really, the only livebearer fish i would keep in a 5gal tank is either a trio of female guppys, or a trio or so of endlers. African dwarf frogs should be fine in anything 2.5gals or more.

Personally what i'd advise is that you rehome all of your fish and just keep the ADF and change your stocking to have more suitable fish like this;

1.5gal

1 Betta/siamese fighting fish

2.5gal

1 Betta/siamese fighting fish

5gal

ADF and a trio of female guppys or a trio of endlers (either a group of 5males, or one male and 2females, or just 3 females). Or instead of fish, just get an assortment of small shrimps and large ornmental snails like golden apple snails and red ramshorm snails to go with the ADF/s.

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