Platy Ratio

[alexiooc]

When I first went into my LFS and asked for 5 platies, the assistant didnt mention that there should be a ration of male and females. So ive ended up with 3 males and 2 females, which seems really unfair as the males wont stop harassing the females. Anyway my question is how many females should I have with the 3 males? I'm upgrading my tank in a week or so, so I was looking to get more platies anyway so just wondering how many females I should get?

 

[Akasha72]

a good ratio with male and female livebearers is 2 or 3 females to 1 male. With the 3 males that you have I would look at getting another 3 or 4 females at the moment and see if the harressing calms down.

Platies will breed (I've found they arn't as prolific as guppies) roughly every 4-6 weeks so too many females and you'll be over run with fry. By getting just another 3 or 4 it should keep that to a minimum. My platies tend to drop on average about 20-25 fry every 6 weeks and I usually find the survivers hiding somewhere days later.

hope that helps

Akasha

 

[alexiooc]

a good ratio with male and female livebearers is 2 or 3 females to 1 male. With the 3 males that you have I would look at getting another 3 or 4 females at the moment and see if the harressing calms down.

Platies will breed (I've found they arn't as prolific as guppies) roughly every 4-6 weeks so too many females and you'll be over run with fry. By getting just another 3 or 4 it should keep that to a minimum. My platies tend to drop on average about 20-25 fry every 6 weeks and I usually find the survivers hiding somewhere days later.

hope that helps

Akasha

Thanks for that! I was looking to get another 4 anyway so I'll make sure I get 4 females!! I've already had one batch which my male betta thought was a great snack!!

Also would it matter if I get wagtail platies or no? Because in my lfs they look about half the size as my platies at the moment, or will they grow to the same size?
Thanks for your help akasha!

 

[Akasha72]

get which ever platies you like. I have a mixture of tuxedo's, sunset, wagtails. They all interbreed and I get some interesting looking fry!

It really is a case of what you like. Platies are platies what ever colour they are

 

[OldMan47]

Wag tailed platies will grow to the same size as the plain colored ones and will breed freely with them.

A side note: I just learned last week that a wag tail is actually a combination of 3 genes. There is the one we see in a twin bar, the one that turns a twin bar into a mickey mouse pattern by adding in the "head" and a swordtail gene that causes those to be expressed as a wag tail and a dark dorsal. Any wag tail is of necessity a swordtail/platy cross because those 3 genes do not all exist in either species alone.