Will Platy survive in a soft acidic water?

[yhbae]

My community tank will end up with very soft water and below pH of 7 (aiming around 6.6 or so). With the addition of driftwood, it may even have some tanning effect. Will Platy survive in this condition? Most site recomends higher pH, of at least 7.

Appreciate any feedback.

 

[GoLdFiSh_GrL]

wut kind of fish is platy?

 

[ChilDawg]

A platy is a poecilid livebearer, which basically means that the female can store sperm from one mating for another few "litters."

I'd be a little hesitant to recommend soft, acidic water for them as that is out of their natural range, but I've seen it done. How's that for wishy-washy?

 

[GoLdFiSh_GrL]

OMG! im sooooo dumb! i thought Platy was the fish's name!!!! lol!

 

[mogurnda]

Mine have been thriving, growing, and pumping out babies for months in a tank with kH 4 and pH 6.6. They even made it through a small pH plunge to 6.0 along the way. Although they haven't made it past the year point, when I usually declare success, they are simply thriving.

Up to now, I have always had them in alkaline conditions, but I wanted someone to eat hair algae in a planted tank. The more I read, the more I wonder about the whole high pH/high kH issue with platies. They live in weedy ditches in the wild, which presumably develop low pH as well. As with most fish, the specific pH is probably a lot less important than clean water and stable conditions.

 

[yhbae]

For my first community tank, my general preference was on the lower pH species. Platy was picked by my 6 year old which is kind of out of the place with the rest of the species, but heck, her opinion has much greater impact than mine around here...

Given that Platy is very hardy, I wouldn't be surprised if it can handle the pH of sub-7, but I wanted to see if anyone actually tried and suceeded. (Thanks for the feedback!)

I just found some driftwood, so I'll find out how much pH it will bring down - I just measured my natural pH of the tap water again, and this time it came out exactly at 7.0 (I thought it used to be 7.2), with KH of 2. I suspect addition of driftwood will easily bring down pH with so little buffer...