Am I making this platy miserable?

LeahK

LeahK

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Jul 5, 2007
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So, my betta has a pet platy, resulting from the fact that I am weak-willed and cannot "let nature take its course" with livebearer fry.
I'll skip the back-story of how this all happened, but there's a single juvenile platy co-habitating with my betta in a 20g tank.
The platy and the betta seem to have worked out some kind of living arrangement. Even though things seem ok, I know that everything I read online says that platies are social fish who need to live in groups. Thus my question, am I making this platy miserable?
If it turns out to be a boy, I could get it another male platy friend, but I worry that they'll end up fighting instead.
If it turns out to be a girl, then I don't want to get it a female friend, because ALL females come home pregnant, and then this whole cycle will just start over again (i.e., I'll start saving fry and have nowhere to put them).
I could rehome it to my friend who keeps lots of platies.
Or I could leave it alone and let it live solo in the betta tank.
What should I do?
 
Platys aren't schooling fish so they don't 'need' other Platys like Loaches need other Loaches to be happy. Platys are 'social' fish, which would mean they don't like to live alone. Your Platy's not alone, he has a Betta :-) You've even got room in there for some Cory Cats, that'd liven things up and they'd be very sweet to the Betta & Platy.
 
That kinda answers my question. I wasn't sure if the betta "counted" as a companion for the platy, or if platies need their own species.
Because, honestly, they're kind of cute in there together, and I'd like to keep them like they are. When the platy was still tiny, it hid all the time, and the betta would chase it whenever it saw it. But as the platy has gotten bigger and less bite-size, it stays out in the tank and even hangs out with the betta some.
I caught them sleeping together in the same corner the other day :)
 
If its a male, you'll see a lot more action in the presence of females.

Your betta is a great fry killer, as well as the platies themselves...I would not worry about getting fry unless your tank has some really reclusive places.
 
I've always understood "social" as liking to being with it's own kind. Most livebearers are social, and while they don't school like Rasboras and such, they are much more lively when kept in colonies.
 
I have a betta and a female platy together in a 12-gallon tank. They get along fine. I don't know if it's a Darwinian thing or what, but my platy is HUGE (and I don't mean pregnant). She was also a fry when I put her in the tank, and now the trunk of her body is at least as big, if not bigger, than my betta -- not counting his fins. So, based on my experience, I'd say leave your platy and betta together.
 
I'd rather leave the situation this way. The platy doesn't seem depressed to me so why bother adding another when the situation itself isn't having issues?
 
vampie said:
I've always understood "social" as liking to being with it's own kind. Most livebearers are social, and while they don't school like Rasboras and such, they are much more lively when kept in colonies.
Click to expand...

I agree with what vampie says but at the same time they are also fine together as they are. Try to ask your friend who already has Platies if he could spare a virgin female for you.
 
Just an update, but the platy/betta combo ended up not working out. Everything was fine until today, when I walked up to the tank and saw the platy biting a huge chunk off the betta's tail fin. Both the tail and bottom fin had pieces missing. The platy was chomping down on the fin and shaking it's head back and forth like a dog playing tug-of-war. :eek:
I scooped the little bugger out and dumped him in my husband's tank. Now I'll be doing daily water changes in the betta tank the hopes of avoiding fin rot.
 
Those Betta fins look a lot like bloodworms, don't they?? He'll heal up just fine. I think it was you I was telling about putting a Betta in with Ghost Shrimp. In like 30 seconds they had every one of that Betta's fins chewed down to nothing! Looked like he was shaved. I don't know how he managed to swim, but he did. He grew super long pretty fins with just clean water and no meds :-)
 
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