Platy

[jonnyf84]

ok you clearly have a dominant fish,they need to be seperated asap. Don't take that rule to seriously, it depends on a lot things, what filtration do you use? how often do you do a gravel clean and water changes (what %)?

weekly water changes 10%. Gravel vac every 2 weeks unless i see poo.
Fluval 1 filter, + airstone
small cave 3 live plants 2 fake plants. large for the tank bogwood.

could I just add females for the dominant to chase so the other male can grow

if you want to add 4 females i would upgrade to a fluval 2 plus and do a 40% weekly water change. i doubt your last statment will work unless you add even more platies or get more tank space as the dominant male with see the other male as a threat. If you cant put one in another tank i would seperate them asap - either use the perspex to split the tank, if money is really tight just put the dominant male in a breeding trap for a couple of days, turn the lights off and let the smaller one re coup, release the dominant one after 2 days, 3 at the most and the tables could well turn as the dominant male may well feel like it has lost its territory.

 

[Jazzzz]

This weekends shopping list then is maybe 3 live plants, 3 female platies, 1 male guppy, new corner tank, airstone

the females will then jion the big male and the weak one can jion the male guppies in the new hopefully corner tank. Money is tight spent bout £100 on fish bits in just over a week and this weekend is now set to be expensive

 

[jonnyf84]

sounds good, what size tank are you thinking of?

 

[Jazzzz]

probs 10 gallon

need to see what the shops have

 

[jonnyf84]

upgrade your filter, theres no harm in a bit of overkill with the filtration plus you dont need to clean it as often and you can adjust the water flow to adjust. good luck.