Just Found A Baby Platy

[unknowntbeast]

Well this is interesting. Last week I found one of my platies dead. No idea what happened. It looked somewhat bloated in the stomach area. Well today as I was just looking at my tank, I find a small platy. It is about 2cm long and has it's color, not clear like some other pictures of fry are. However I am not sure which platy gave birth to it. There were only two, the dead one and another one that looks bloated, anti-social, and hanging around the heater all day. I'm not sure if this one is prego or not and if it will pop out more fish or is it done all at once? I've looked and seen no other fry, just this one. It is a community tank...5 zebra danios, 3 mollies, 2 dwarf gouramis and now two platies again. My only major concern is that the pH seems to crash every time I replace the water. Its whole life has been in 6 pH water, and being so young, I'm not sure how quickly I should raise it. Any other suggestions would be great.

 

[VaegaVic]

When you say "the pH seems to crash every time I replace the water"


How so?

 

[unknowntbeast]

That's the thing, I do not know. Maybe it's all the plants in the tank or it's something with the water.

On a sidenote, when I was preping another tank for it, it went missing! Not until just 5 minutes ago this morning was I able to find it again.

 

[FWFishLover]

That's the thing, I do not know. Maybe it's all the plants in the tank or it's something with the water.

On a sidenote, when I was preping another tank for it, it went missing! Not until just 5 minutes ago this morning was I able to find it again.

just had a molly fry this morning put in a bowl a bam couldnt find it hahahaha.
i later found it.
it seems it likes to hide on the edge of the gravel at the glass of the bowl.
and like you he or she was the only fry i found

 

[OldMan47]

Please measure your tap water pH after a few hours of sitting in a plain glass container. chances are that your local tap water has a low pH and it is affecting your livebearers. I find that my own fish do well with a pH of around 7.8 and a relatively high mineral content. I would definitely be hesitant to place them into water that is lower than a 7.0 pH or low in mineral content. The way to cure low pH is found in my signature area under the title of pH problems.

 

[unknowntbeast]

I've measured the tap a few month back and I just measured it again, and they are both the same, 7.6. It wasn't a glass cup, but rather an old 3 liter soda bottle but I don't think it should make a differencce. It has something to do with the tank I presume? Maybe it's all the plants? I do have a pH raiser, but I don't want to raise it too quickly...should I use crushed coral?

 

[OldMan47]

The reason to wait a while is that CO2 in the water will drop the pH in tap water and after a short time, maybe an hour or two, the effect will be pretty much gone. I would not expect a soda bottle to change things much either. The crushed coral will indeed raise the pH of your water. If you go that way you are faced with having a routine where you get some rise from the coral dissolving in the water and then doing a water change to keep it from going too far. The balance between water changes and the amount of coral will only work as long as you can be fairly consistent with the water changes. Right now I don't worry about it much if I miss a water change but if I was using coral, missing a water change would become a big deal.

 

[unknowntbeast]

Ok, I was at the LFS and they only had one bag of one brand of crushed coral. I just wanted to make sure it was the right stuff. It had marine written on it and wanted to make sure that it wasn't solely for salt water tanks or would the salt from the coral be bad for the tank?

 

[OldMan47]

The crushed coral is what marine tanks use for substrate. Saltwater fish need quite a high pH so it makes sense there. You do not want to use a lot of coral like that, but just a small amount in the filter flow if you decide to use it for pH control.