Putting Weight On Platies?

[modaz]

a nice and slim platy but with the regular shape of the species is all that is needed, fattening up to meet your needs b/c they dont look to right in your eyes isnt the correct way of caring for your fish.

 

[fry_lover]

90F isn't a great temperature to keep the fish at for prolonged periods, but they are fine at that temperature. 87F is where you want to see the temperature at when you have ich in the tank, so it's not too high.

LOL her heater malfunctioned, she aint keeping her fish at 90 on purpose

Platies like small frequent feedings. Vegetable matter is very important as with most livebearers. A high quality flake in part with some vegetable based flake and frozen foods should have them in good condition in no time. Just make sure the get lots of green (vegetable flake, peas, cucumber, etc) as this makes up a lot of their diet.Good luck with your platies, they are still one of my favorite fish.DrewEdit-Oh just noticed you said trio, and just a tip if you didnt know but platies will thrive with the ratio of 1 male per 3 females if not more females. You would be amazed how well they do with many more females than males. Just a tip.

this makes platies out to be a new species of Mbuna yes they can do with some veggie component, but dont go treating these guys like Herbivores..... brine shrimp, blood worm, white worm and daphnia (all frozen in my opinion) should all make up a good part of their diet along with a good quality flake. Platies dont go around grazing on veg in the wild (from what i been told, i normally get my platies from a dude who collects them in Mexico i think? I get either the wilds of F1s although i also topped up not long ago from LFS!!!!. Not knocking the advice around some veg component in their diet, but they dont "need" LOTS of greens.

um yes vegetable matter makes up a large part of their diet in the wild (have you never seen a livebearer picking algae off a plant or the sides of the tank?) Mollies and platies etc...can be the best defense in algae. I agree with you a vary diet is important but I do breed them seriously, and I stand by my statement that most livebearers will be in the best health with lots of vegetable in their diet. Of course protein and other food is important. Why do you say only frozen? Live foods are just as good and safe (besides tubifex). Your correct they're not herbivores, they are omnivores so a balanced diet of food is best.

Heres some links that state they have a high herbivorous requirement since I can't convince you...
Link 1
^^Note: "Platy will generally eat all kinds of live, fresh, and flake foods. But they have a very high herbivorous requirement, and their diet needs to include lots of algae and other vegetation. Feed brine shrimp (either live or frozen), tubifex, or blood worms as a treat. They will enjoy the proteins but they must also have a vegetation diet."

And another...
^^Note:Vegetable matter should be offered regularly. The growth of algae should be promoted as this is a favourite food."

One more...
^^Platies will eat algae off of tank walls so don't scrape it all off; they'll appreciate the snack. In keeping with their appetite for algae, Platies should be fed a vegetable-based diet. Spirulina wafers or pellets are best used as a staple diet and fresh veggies (chopped to proper size) should also be offered periodically to supplement the spirulina."

-Hopefully, now you can see that platies are obviously not a species of Mbuna, their dietary needs are very similar. They thrive on veggies, not just, as you put it, "they can do with some veggie component"

Drew

Good points Drew, like a said a balanced diet, i certainly dont want to appear to be saying they dont need veg at all, sure they will peck on plants i have a big planted tank with livebearers and other community fish. Thats true, no argument there. The dont do it much, and certainly platies dont do it as much as Mollies, i would say thats a fact even rather than my personal opinion. Most sites i use when you go into Platy diet, they really do focus on the non-vegetable components, so i just wanted to try and do my bit, so the Original Poster didnt start feeding their Platy's a mostly vegetable diet, no offence to you. I do use Spirulina myself as part of the Community Tank feeding routine.

Platies will "thrive" with a balanced diet and which should include some veggie component, thats more my view, so i kinda stick by that.

Sure there are some similairities between a platy's diet and that of Mbuna, the same can be said for many fish, but i think saying platy's dietary needs are "very similar" to Mbuna is a bit of a stretch mate

I guess it could become a play on words all this, so i will wrap up my view as saying , you are correct to highlight including a veggie component in the platy diet, you dont actually see enough of that, peeps dont bother trying to give fish a varied and balanced diet, god only knows how many platies get the same type of flaked food everyday for almost their whole life

 

[starrynightxxi]

hmm... I'm being accused of all sorts of things in this thread

1. the only place i ever read about any problems caused by bloodworms is here. While reading up on the fish i keep, most of the sites i've been to promote it. so, while i'm not saying you guys are wrong - because it's entirely possible that you aren't - you haven't exactly proven your case to me. show me your proof and i'll consider what you have to say.

2. modaz, i'm not trying to fatten up my platies for the sake of them being fat. They look thin to me so I asked the best way to put some weight on them, but i'm not going to stuff them until they explode. It's possible that I'm comparing them to something that's unrealistic and i guess i'll find out with regular feedings, won't i?

3. poopsydrew, thanks for actually getting me the information I was after

finally, i do appreciate that you are all trying to help me help my fish, but this isn't the place to argue about the healthiness, or lack thereof, of bloodworm. My original question was about thin platies, afterall. I'm not going to be drawn into a different discussion unless you can show me something useful instead of comparing it to me eating nothing but big macs, which i don't think is a very apt comparison.

 

[poopsydrew]

Your welcome and sorry if we got your thread a little out of hand/hijacked. Good luck with your platies.

Drew

 

[afishdude]

you cannot get proof of fish dieng of shortend lives.

http/www.fishlore.com/Food.htm --- scroll down to bloodworms.
http/tropical-aquarium-fish.com/topics/f...sh-foods.htm--- states that its a supplement not a strait food.
http/betta-breeders.com/FREE_USER/tropical_fish_foods.htm- you have to read the first paragraph in brineshrimp.

 

[fry_lover]

maybe she just hasnt been looking very hard

EDIT: thats not supposed to be an accusation!!!!! Lets keep it friendly, bloodworms are pretty well known to cause problems, depends on (a) how much they being used (B) if they are live bloodworms and © type of fish receiving them

but boy, i see your point about bringing evidence, i just cant be bothered to start hunting down links from google, you can do that yourself if you interested in my points. I see what your saying, but theres not many threads where peeps give a feedback or opinion and back it up with firm evidence, thats the Scientific Forum really (which is actually really interesting)

 

[afishdude]

i googeld it and it took like 1 min to find those.

 

[fry_lover]

well we gonna get told off for bringing bloodworm back into the thread,

Good Luck with the platies Starrynight i hope they start packing on the pounds soon, as long as they havent got hollow bellies should be ok, although if they get way skinny, have to consider internal parastites

EDIT for spelling issues

 

[starrynightxxi]

-lol- i'm not going to tell you off, i asked for proof and you were kind enough to give me something of that nature. personally i never googled bloodworms so that would be why i never found anything against them. Like i said, i researched my fish, and most sites said bloodworm was fine. on planetcatfish, for example, for the trilineatus it suggests only two foods (though they will, of course, eat anything), and bloodworm was one of them.

You may think it's odd that I never searched for them. I'm generally pretty sensible, but sometimes I just don't think. Must have blonde roots

 

[afishdude]

catfish are different than livebarers.

 

[starrynightxxi]

catfish are different than livebarers.

really? gosh.


[edit] to point out that that is, indeed sarcasm. i don't know if i'm unclear or you don't pay attention, afishdude, but i was not comparing the two. you said bloodworm was bad, you did not say bloowdorm was bad for livebearers. I was simply pointing out that there are respected sites where it is recommended as a staple. I never intended to feed my platies strictly bloodworm. If I did, I wouldn't have come here for help, I'd have gone ahead and just done it.

 

[afishdude]

catfish are different than livebarers.

really? gosh.


[edit] to point out that that is, indeed sarcasm. i don't know if i'm unclear or you don't pay attention, afishdude, but i was not comparing the two. you said bloodworm was bad, you did not say bloowdorm was bad for livebearers. I was simply pointing out that there are respected sites where it is recommended as a staple. I never intended to feed my platies strictly bloodworm. If I did, I wouldn't have come here for help, I'd have gone ahead and just done it.

well the topic is about live barers so common sence leeds you to believe that i was talking about livebarers. all fish are different, some can digest more than others. like plecos can digest wood, no other fish can. just like catfish such as corys can live on strait bloodworm, when livebarers cannot.

 

[LauraFrog]

Female platies are fatter than males even when they are in good condition, and lean males are healthy, not too thin.

About the ratio of males to females - somewhere on the net it's saying that there should be 2 males per female, but I did this with guppies and they fought over the female. My platies are 1 male to 3 females and that's working just fine.

 

[poopsydrew]

Female platies are fatter than males even when they are in good condition, and lean males are healthy, not too thin.

About the ratio of males to females - somewhere on the net it's saying that there should be 2 males per female, but I did this with guppies and they fought over the female. My platies are 1 male to 3 females and that's working just fine.

Thats what I said, just making sure you didnt think I said 2 males per females because I certainly did not.

I agree with you, 1:3 male to female ratio (or even more females), is best.

Drew