The shop sexed my platies wrong...

[neptuneviv]

Hi,

I went to buy platies in the LFS, and I told the guy I wanted *a* male and few females (I know the girls get pestered when they're outnumbered) and trusted him on that. Now I've looked at my fish carefully and I believe that I've got 3 males and 2 females (if I'm not mistaken, the gonopodium looks just like the anal fin, except it's not triangular but sort of pointy and shrivelled, right?). Should I be worried about my females getting harrassed by the males? I suppose I could keep a couple of males in a temporary 10G tank with a betta or take them back to the shop if I had problems... any opinions? will I get trouble or am I worrying for nothing?

Thanks

Viv

 

[William]

http/fish.orbust.net/livebearers.html I wrote this myself and it should answer for once and for all if your platies are male or female. A ratio of 3 males: 2 females will lead to the females being stresssed out, taking back a couple of the males and asking them to be swapped to females would be one way of solving this, the shop should do this given that they have given you the wrong info.

Sometimes platies will be okay in this ratio it is true so you may wish to wait but then if trouble does start it will be harder to exchange the males back

 

[bigfish]

if tank space allows get 2 more females and you pick the ones you want!!!! thats what i do at my lfs, otherwise i tell the guy i'm not interested!!!