Will I be overstocked?

[mandi]

Quick question -- I have a 6 gallon (US) tank with 2 platies in it currently, a male and a female. I wanted to add another female so that the first one doesn't get stressed. In a 6-gallon tank will that be too crowded?

I was also thinking of adding a small bottom-feeder of some type (suggestions?) to help keep the tank clean. Again, if I add one more platy, and the small bottom-feeder (4 fish total) will that be too many?

I know it's supposed to be about 1" of fish per gallon... but I wanted to double-check.

 

[yhbae]

One male and one female in a small tank will most likely result in a very stressed female and potentially become sick due to stress. So you need at least another female if not more.

In my experience, I was never able to get my 5.5g tank to breed adult platies for any extended periods of time - they all got sick eventually, while in a 10g, I never had issues. Not sure if this is because of pure aggression issue or just that it is hard to keep environment stable in a 5.5g tank, but neverthless that is my experience. (Your mileage may vary).

If I were you, I'd add another female, and provide lots of places for the females to hide, and carefully monitor how male behaves.

 

[Final Dynazty]

You should def. go with a 10 gallon tank. Its will give you more room and will be perfect for ur three platies and bottom feeder.

 

[cutecotton]

to add, most bottom feeders are schooling fish (such as otos or cory cats), and need to be in groups of 3 or more, adding that to your current tank along with another female platy would be overstocking

 

[Nisha]

If you want something to handle the algae you might try ghost shrimp. They add very little bioload to the tank and do a fairly good job cleaning up.

 

[cutecotton]

make sure you get the algae eating shrimp regular ghost shrimp don't touch algae

 

[yhbae]

5.5g tank is really too small to turn it into a community tank built around platies. You can keep it and watch carefully for breeding platies but you shouldn't add any more species such as bottom dwellers as it would overstock your tank.

What kind of filtration do you have?

 

[mandi]

5.5g tank is really too small to turn it into a community tank built around platies. You can keep it and watch carefully for breeding platies but you shouldn't add any more species such as bottom dwellers as it would overstock your tank.

What kind of filtration do you have?

It's the Eclipse System Six aquariums, so it has the "3-stage" filtration (as the box calls it) with the carbon filter and bio-wheel I believe.

I've been keeping an eye on the fish, and the male actually doesn't seem very interested in the female -- he seems more interested in picking at my sword plants actually. Hm..

 

[yhbae]

If you have one of those rare male platy that doesn't bother females, you are very lucky - I have yet to discover one and I own MANY male platies...

If that is the case, perhaps you can go ahead and add some cories (of your own favorite kinds).

Out of curiosity, how old/large are your platies?

 

[mandi]

Out of curiosity, how old/large are your platies?

Not sure how old. They're about 1.5 inches I'd estimate.

I'll have to bug my friend ... he has a 10 gal. and a 30 gal. he's not using, so hopefully I can talk him into selling me those cheap. Then I could move the platies to the 30 gal.

(Off topic -- but I believe his 30 gal. was previously used for saltwater fish -- If I clean it up would I be able to use it?)