Platies

[Blue Bubble]

Hello All

Glad I found you, wonderful website.

I wondered if anyone could help me, I am trying to find out what happened to my Platies.

To give you some background, I have had my tank for about 9 months and have been doing well...........

I have zebra danios, neon tetras, platies (did have) and a loach, all living together fine, until about a month ago. I do feel that I was overstocked for such a small tank (in hindsight) at the beginning, what the fish shop recommended!!!

I have a new, bigger tank being delivered, this week, yeh! so would like to know what when wrong with my platies so I don't do it wrong next time and I am thinking about what fish to add in my new tank, moving from a 35l to 105l.

I do weekly water changes and regularly test my water.

About a month ago one of my platies died, everyone else was fine, so thought maybe it was old age etc.

But gradually one by one the other 3 have died, they would rest at the bottom of the tank, come up to the top to feed and then go back down. I did 10% water changes every other day just to make sure it wasn't my water, even though it was testing okay. All the other fish were fine, which made me think it wasn't the water, otherwise they would have been affected, wouldn't they??

I asked somewhere else and they said that I had the wrong fish together, is this true, from my research on the internet, I thought Danios, Tetras and Platies were okay together?? is this right?

Look forward to hearing from you and thank you for your help in advance.

 

[waterdrop]

Perhaps your pH is quite low? Usually the actual numerical pH won't matter much in tropical fish community fishkeeping as long as the pH is stable, but platies do tend to need a rather high pH I believe whereas the some of the other fish you mention tend to like a low pH.

Next thought after that would turn to some sort of virus or bacterium I suppose. The members may want to know your tank stats but if you've been running ok for 9 months then one would not think of basic stats as the first problem.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[dwarfgourami]

I have had quite a lot of trouble with platies: like guppies and dwarf gouramis, they are commercially bred in huge numbers so are sensitive to diseases and the kind of genetical problems that come with indiscriminate overbreeding. Have done better with less common livebearers, like limias and endlers.

 

[Blue Bubble]

I have had quite a lot of trouble with platies: like guppies and dwarf gouramis, they are commercially bred in huge numbers so are sensitive to diseases and the kind of genetical problems that come with indiscriminate overbreeding. Have done better with less common livebearers, like limias and endlers.

Thank you dwarfgourami, I haven't heard of them, going off to look them off.

x