Platy Problem - what should I do?

C

chofmann79

AC Members
Jan 3, 2006
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Cleveland, OH
I just set up a new 10-gallon tank, and right now i have 3 mickey mouse platies in there. I aked the guy at the fish store for 2 females and 1 male, and he told me that's what he gave me, but it turns out he was wrong and there are 2 males and 1 female. It took me about a week to realize this problem, since they all got along fine at first...the two males swam around together, and the female was usually doing her own thing. All of a sudden after 10 days, the bigger of the two males started spending all of his time with the female and he is always following her and trying to mate with her, and whenever he sees the smaller male, he will chase him all over the tank and nip at him. Now, the smaller male spends all his time alone behind rocks or hiding in plants...even during feeding he is very hesitant in coming out of hiding...he gets attacked even then, and I'm worried he's not getting enough to eat. If the other male or the female fish swim in his direction, he immediately shys away and goes back to hiding. In general, he acts very afraid and timid around either of the other two fish, even though it's only the male that chases him.

Now i realize the problem is caused by having 2 males and only 1 female. My question is, what should I do to fix this? I don't want the big male to kill the smaller male, and i don't want the female to get stressed out from being constantly followed. Should I get another 1 or 2 female platies and add them to the tank? would this stop the larger male from attacking the smaller male? I only have this 1 tank, and my apartment is not big enough for me to get another one. I don't want to add a ton of new platies, though, since the tank is only 10gal and i was hoping to add a second species of fish in a couple weeks.

Thanks for any help!
 
I'd buy more females. Minimum 2:1 ratio, I prefer 3:1 so... you need 6 femmes for your 2 males. 8 platies is pretty much a full stock for a 10g though.
 
I ran into a similar problem. I bought 1 male and three females, but one of the females was actually male, and there were agression issues. It was soon after buying them that I figured it out, so returned one of the males to the LFS for another female. You could likely do the same.
 
if i just add more females, is the larger male platy likely to just leave the smaller one alone? or is this more of a territorial issue that will continue regardless of how many females i add? i'd hate to add more females and not have the problem solved (and have an even bigger problem...I definitely don't want/need 6 female fish having babies all the time)
 
chofmann79 said:
if i just add more females, is the larger male platy likely to just leave the smaller one alone? or is this more of a territorial issue that will continue regardless of how many females i add? i'd hate to add more females and not have the problem solved (and have an even bigger problem...I definitely don't want/need 6 female fish having babies all the time)
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IME, no, he'll likely still hassle the smaller male, unless you add a few more females. Since you're working with only 10 gallons, you're limited to how many fish you can have. Personally, I'd stick with no more than 1 male to 2 or 3 females. BTW, if your fish are anything like mine, none of the fry will survive unless you have lots plant cover for them to hide in...even the mother was snapping up fry as soon as they were born.
 
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