platy questions

Lauren

Lauren

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Aug 9, 2003
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Can platies live in brackish environments? I haven't seen anything that has said outright that they can, but they like alkaline water and higher PH, so I think they should be okay.

Also, for the 45g, I have 3 red females in the tank right now, and I'm really enjoying watching them, i'm going to pick up a few more sunset and red ones. I was wondering if I should keep it all female, or get one or two males so I can get some fry for my angelfish to eat. Is there a good chance that even with one male they will reproduce faster than my angelfish can eat them?
 
bu-bu-bump
 
Platies are freshwater fish. If you are looking for somethiong similar that will thrive in BW, go with mollies.
 
It's not pH and alkalinity that plays a part in brackish water, it's the GH --general hardness.

You can have brackish water that is relatively low in pH and alkalinity --

My tap water is 7.4 pH, 2 dKH, 5 dGH

When I add in marine salt to SG 1.003, which is low-end brackish, I get:

7.8 pH, 3 dKH, 21 dGH

You can see that the pH and KH barely moved. It's brackish water, but low in pH and KH. However, the GH jumped to 21. That's very "thick" water. Salt increases the TDS and it shows thus in the GH reading. I order to house a BW fish like a puffer, I still have to add crushed coral to the tank in order to raise the pH to above 8.0.

Just because a fish likes or naturally comes from alkaline water, does not mean they will survive in brackish water.

Which also makes me wonder -- for a low-end brackish fish, why do we raise the pH to a marine level of 8.2? IS the pH that high in water where fresh is predominant? I bet it isn't. Going to post in the brackish forum and find out.

Mollies, for the most part, live in water with a high TDS and people try to emulate that in home aquaria by using brackish water. Same with African cichlids. That's why you have "cichlid salt".

As for platies, I wouldn't keep them in brackish at all because of the GH, not the salt per se.

JM2C

Roan
 
:( The tank is only 5 gallons so I can't get Mollies. The only fish that would fit would eat my shrimp. I would like to have at least something swimming. No fun for Lauren.

I suppose I could reconfigure everything into my 10 gallon and keep the 5 as a quarantine tank, but then I'd need to find somewhere for the 10. I guess i'll have to think about it, if I cant' find anything that swims to work in the 5 gallon,.
 
A couple of guppies?
 
Lauren said:
:( The tank is only 5 gallons so I can't get Mollies. The only fish that would fit would eat my shrimp. I would like to have at least something swimming. No fun for Lauren.

I suppose I could reconfigure everything into my 10 gallon and keep the 5 as a quarantine tank, but then I'd need to find somewhere for the 10. I guess i'll have to think about it, if I cant' find anything that swims to work in the 5 gallon,.
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What kind of shrimp do you have? You could turn it into a nice planted tank with shrimp in it. But I guess you could go with Dwarf livebearers, aka least killies in your tank or a type of Killie.
But listen to Roan on this, she is correct on the Hardness of water.
 
I think guppies may be the only way to go. I have these Hawaiian shrimp, I don't remember their names right now, starts with an O. But they are little guys, my info says they will only grow to be 5cm full grown, they are probaby about 2cm right now. They were a gift from my grandmother for my birthday, so the worst thing in the world would be for them to get eaten. I think I'd rather just have shrimp then have them get eaten.

I guess I'll get a couple guppies after the shrimp grow up.
 
Unless you have tons of plants for fry to hide in, chances are they'll get eaten before you have any survivors, sure the angels would love it :)
 
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