Platy Murder?

[vanvran]

I'm so sad--I found my little black speckled platy "Sparkle" curled up dead last night! I've had him for over a year, and almost from the start, he was "bullied" by my red platy. I isolated the red one in a floating crib but Sparkle hung by the side of the crib, and the red one was miserable. I tried using a net during feeding time to keep the red one from bullying my Sparkle--it was the worst at feeding time. The only symptom was that Sparkle tended to "lay low" at the bottom fo the tank, hiding a lot in plants, cave, etc. The day before Sparkle died, I fed him some treats, and he gobbled the food/bloodworms as if he were starving. I feel so bad. I actually am beginning to hate the red platy, and want to get rid of him. I have 2 cories, 2 ottos (and in the last two months they are hiding all the time now); 5 neon tetras. Any suggestions? Water parameters are perfect, I do weekly water changes and gravel vacs.

 

[Genesis]

could just be stress tbh, my 'adorable' simese fighter died of stress

if you want to 'seriously' get rid of your red platy, give him back to the pet shop where you bought him, they may want to re-sell him but dont expect a re-fund

 

[WILDER]

Sorry for your loss, R.I.P. bless him, if he was resting on the bottom alot it could of been a bacteria infection.

 

[solidshark55]

OMG THATS SAD GOOD THING FISH ARENT AS HARD AS LOSSING A PERSON OUR A DOG OUR CAT

 

[GeeFish]

Sorry if this is a sucks eggs question, but do you definately know the sex of the platies??

If one of them was a male (Red one) then he would constantly harass another female especially if they are the only female in the tank! Livebearing fish are well renowned for breeding, so maybe she died of stress relating to being harassed by the male? If the red one is male and was rejected, he maybe didn't take it so good!

With livebearers I always have a 1 male to 3 female ratio, just so one female doesn't get all the attention all the time and also the male doesn't seem to take rejection to hard if more females are in there.

Gee

 

[Priscilla]

I'm so sad--I found my little black speckled platy "Sparkle" curled up dead last night! I've had him for over a year, and almost from the start, he was "bullied" by my red platy. I isolated the red one in a floating crib but Sparkle hung by the side of the crib, and the red one was miserable. I tried using a net during feeding time to keep the red one from bullying my Sparkle--it was the worst at feeding time. The only symptom was that Sparkle tended to "lay low" at the bottom fo the tank, hiding a lot in plants, cave, etc. The day before Sparkle died, I fed him some treats, and he gobbled the food/bloodworms as if he were starving. I feel so bad. I actually am beginning to hate the red platy, and want to get rid of him. I have 2 cories, 2 ottos (and in the last two months they are hiding all the time now); 5 neon tetras. Any suggestions? Water parameters are perfect, I do weekly water changes and gravel vacs.

How long have been feeding & often do you feed bloodworms & which kind...frozen or feeze dried?
I lost a lot of fish due to frozen ones I purchased....they'd must have been thawed & re-frozen. I didn't save the big tub full of remaining ones nor the store receipt to take them back...I was pretty upset to lose so many because of a pet shop's carelessness.
Priscilla

 

[dwarfgourami]

We did have a thread some time ago discussing whether colour difference could lead to bullying in platys. My black platy was also bullied to death by a pink one, though he was male and she female; he never tried to mate with her though, only attacked her at meal times. There were a couple of other people who reported similar problems, though I think in the end the question was undecided. My pink platy was perfectly amiable with other fish, including a red platy, guppies and corys.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Alot of why your platy got picked on is wether the agressive one was male or female and what gender your victum platy was. For any all male platy group you need at least 5males(if you have the tank space) to spread out the agression to help prevent any one platy getting picked on too much. If you had a male and female platy that is also another cause for concern as you need at least 2-3female platys per male as the male will constantly harrass the females and too few females can result in a single one getting over-harrassed.
Livebearers like platys have almost never ending apetites, its very easy to overfeed them as they will always "beg" for food, this is just a natural instinct as in the wild there is little food to go around and the platys will eat as much as they posibly can when they can as their next meal could be in a weeks time, they are always looking for food. Its posible you overfed your platy on his last day, a single platy should eat no more than 4 bloodworms a day with nothing else included as bloodworms are highly nutritious and can cause constipation if overfed upon, not to mention they can mess up water quality if you put too many in a tank as they rot very quickly.