Platies

[kcl_jmo]

Hi all,

Interested in any information regarding platies. What are they like to keep in terms of personality and visual appeal, hardiness? Just tell me about your set up, routine and experience with them. And how do you get on with letting them breed? Are you managing to thin out the population if neccessary or is it out of control?

 

[GaryE]

The key to platys is to buy healthy ones from the outset. I've almost always had some since I started in the hobby, and they're great little fish - a bit messed around by linebreeding and artificial selection, but fun to keep.

Are you considering getting some?

 

[kcl_jmo]

We are considering some fish types for a family pet. At the moment, it's platy vs paradise fish vs honey gourami, we are building a sort of score sheet for them to judge which will be best. How have you dealt with the breeding aspect? I think we would be interested in letting them reproduce (the platies that is, not the other fish species!) but don't want to bite off more than we can chew as beginners.

 

[GaryE]

Platys will bury you. In an 80 ltr, I keep them with a fry predator if I want to control population. Most fish that don't devour their own young will eat the young of another species.
Honey gouramis are lovely, but there are 2 different fish sold under the name in the fish business. The original one, T. chuna, is a sweetheart, but it can lose its colour easily outside of breeding season. They're fun to breed though.
Paradise fish are good, but grumpy. As family pets, kids find them dull. I had them in a classroom aquarium and the kids liked everything else in there. Paradises are pretty, but not extremely active fish.

I've bred all three, and kept all three in various combinations with other species.

 

[kcl_jmo]

Paradise fish have come up top on our matrix. But shame to know that they are dull!

 

[GaryE]

My view of dull may be different from others though. Take what I say with a grain of salt. I think:
any fish kept alone is dull. Interaction is everything;
big fish are dull if you have small tanks;
all fish are dull if you try to make them fit your plans. If you look at them as what they are, and then try to design tanks so they can thrive, they become very interesting. Paradise fish want to be in large, slow moving tanks where multiple males and females can breed, establish feeding and breeding territories, etc. Platys are social, but their behaviour is feed and breed to an almost exaggerated level. Honey gouramis, the real ones, need a well designed set up to thrive, but unless you are breeding them, also do well with shoals of Bororas or other small Asian fish in with them.

 

[Lanpenn]

I became curious about a thing: besides Trichogaster chuna being sold as "honey gourami", what would be the other species? I had a male Macropodus opercularis in a 10-gallon tank several years ago, with a few Danio rerio. He was a very interesting fish, indeed, but, for some reason, he became apparently sick (I do not remember exactly) and, when I transferred him to a separate basin in order to try to treat him, he committed suicide, jumping.

 

[kcl_jmo]

My view of dull may be different from others though. Take what I say with a grain of salt. I think:
any fish kept alone is dull. Interaction is everything;
big fish are dull if you have small tanks;
all fish are dull if you try to make them fit your plans. If you look at them as what they are, and then try to design tanks so they can thrive, they become very interesting. Paradise fish want to be in large, slow moving tanks where multiple males and females can breed, establish feeding and breeding territories, etc. Platys are social, but their behaviour is feed and breed to an almost exaggerated level. Honey gouramis, the real ones, need a well designed set up to thrive, but unless you are breeding them, also do well with shoals of Bororas or other small Asian fish in with them.

I hear you, this makes sense. What would you suggest for a 45-80L aquarium?

 

[gimme30]

Corys! Specifically a school of pygmies. Full of personality and they're less prone to hanging out on the bottom than their larger cousins. They're not the most colorful things though.

 

[GaryE]

I don't like answering with fish suggestions. What I like may be very different from what gets your eye.

We're at a disadvantage in the hobby now, because as good as the internet is, and as limited as books were, books allowed us to sit down and slowly look through and read about fish species. The internet is great if you already know what you are looking for.

So here is what I suggest. Do a few circuits of the local aquarium stores over the next few weeks. Study each tank, and record the names of any and all fish you like. Check them at a site called Seriously Fish, the closest thing to a beginner's aquarium book I've found online. Pay attention to full adult size, behaviour,, and environment. Eliminate the ones that just don't work for you.

Then, armed (ideally) with the trade name and the Latin name (trade names in the UK can be different from ones in other countries, and vice versa) , ask about them here. There are members with experience and knowledge of all sorts of different fish groups here. Ask me about loaches and I don't know a lot more than a just hired fish catcher in a store. Ask me about dwarf Cichlids, tetras or killies, and we're in business. But others here know their loaches, and can help.

 

[emeraldking]

So.... Have you already decided yet what to choose...?

I don't like answering with fish suggestions. What I like may be very different from what gets your eye.

I totally agree on this...

 

[gwand]

What Gary and Emeraldking mean is…you choose the fish and we will criticize your choice! It’s so much fun!