Overview of Platy:

Platies are suitable for beginners because they do not need high care due to their hardy nature. They are active swimmers & can be found in multiple colors. Platies are popular & many hobbyists love to keep them in aquariums. They have small size & many hobbyists keep them in small tanks. Their max. size is just 3 inches.

Platies are best tank mates because of their peaceful nature. Platies can be very active. They love swimming in groups.

They love having small peaceful inhabitants in their community such as mollies, swordtails & guppies. They are loosely related to them. But they also welcome other peaceful inhabitants as well.

 

Category

Rating

Care Level

Novice

Nature

Peaceful

Lifespan

3 to 5 years

Size

Up to 3 inches

Food

Omnivore

Family

Poeciliidae

Min. Aquarium Size

10 gallon

Aquarium Set-Up

Freshwater, dense vegetation

Tank Mates

Small size peaceful fish



Water Temperature & Quality for Platy:

Platies are little tropical fish found in the rivers of Central America.

Platies are from Mexico & Central America, so they like to live in warm temperatures b/w 21 to 27 Degrees Celsius. Using a heater will let them heat water. Make sure your tank is clean by adding a filter. You must use mechanical & biological filter in your tank to ensure water is clean & remove toxic chemicals in the water that releases waste. Adding live plants & decorations can provide hiding spots to platies & live plants help in natural filtration & it can oxidize water. Platies love having weak currents with a pH of 6.8 to 8, & water hardness between 10 to 28 dGH.

 

Platy Diet:

They love to eat enriched vegetable diet. Platies like diets such as crustaceans, insects, worms & live plants. Platies are omnivorous but like eating herbivorous food too.

They love eating most foods from live, commercially made & vegetables. Provide them a quality flake food. An enriched vitamin food will provide the best coloration. Provide them small amounts of diet multiple times every day.

Platies don’t have sword at the bottom of their tails like swordtails. Both platies & swordtails are livebearers. Platies are discovered in the east coast of Central America & southern Mexico. They belong to the Poeciliidae family.

Platies grow to a max length of 7 cm. They are able to have from 20 to 50 baby fish at a time, as often as 1 time a month. They can eat their fries.

 

Aquarium Size for Platy:

Platies have small size & they are suitable for small to medium size tanks. They need at least 10 gallons of water in aquarium.

Platies are kept mostly in tropical tanks. Multiple color variations of platies are available such as red, yellow, orange, blue, rainbow & white.

Platies have bright colors. They have multiple breeds & hybrids which are available in the colors of a rainbow.

They love to swim in small groups & hide b/w the floating leaves.

Platies are not aggressive in nature. They can jump outside water. Make sure your aquarium has a lid to avoid them from jumping outside.

Platy fish are hard in nature & can tolerate harsh conditions. Make sure you do regular water changes with 25 percent water changed every 2 weeks.

Platies need a heavily planted aquarium which has gravel substrate. Water & temperature requirement is different a bit depending on the variety of platies you have. Best temperature for platies is between 70 to 75 Degree Fahrenheit. Platies will show better colors if you have cooler temperature.

Platies like to have weak currents with a weak pH of 6.8 to 8 & hardness of water between 10 to 28 dGH.

 

Platy Tank Mates:

Platies like to swim around in groups with male platies rarely fight amongst themselves. Best tank mates for platies are mollies, swordtails & guppies. Platies like to live with other similar size & temperament species such as Tetras, Corydoras, Characins, Gouramis, little peaceful barbs & other platies. You can keep shrimps & snails too.

Make sure you have more female platies than males. This prevents the female platies from becoming exhausted while being chased. It is suggested to keep 2 or 3 female to every male platy.

 

Platy Diet:

Platies are not fussy eaters & love to eat a variety of vegetable enriched diet. In platies’ natural habitat, they love to eat small crustaceans, worms, insects & live plants. Platies are omnivorous species, but they love to eat herbivorous food.

They like to eat majority of diet, live, commercially made & vegetables. Select a better quality flake diet.

Offer them once or twice a week brine shrimp, tubiflex, & worms. Protein enriched food is better for them. Also you can offer them boiled vegetables for example squash, spinach, cucumber & vegetable supplements including spirulina are good food.

If you feed them vitamin enriched food, then it can show better colors in your platies.

Feed them small quantities of diet multiple times every day. Offer them food that platies can eat within 3 minutes.

 

Platy Fish Care:

Platies are little tough species that do not get illnesses quickly. But they can get common problems for example ich & fin rot.

It is a bit difficult to spot illnesses in a fish especially in early stages. Make sure you give some time monitoring their appearance & behavior or some flukes on the body & skin of fish. If you spot such issues early, then it will be simple to cure them.

Ich is one of the common illness. It causes white spots on the body, gills & fins of fish & such parasites are not very difficult to treat. If such illness is not treated early, then it is responsible for severe infections & cause respiratory damage. You can raise temperature of water, or use medicines to cure it.

Fin Rot is caused due to bacterial infection on the tail or fin of fish. Antibiotics are the top choices for curing fin rot. Adding them with food can help cure your fish.

Make sure you have best water quality & better diet to avoid these illnesses. If you lower stress on your fish, then it is helpful & it can be done by offering the best environment for the fish. If your fish are stressed, then it might get ill quickly.

It is better to cure illnesses by cleaning & quarantining anything that you add to your fish tank, such as fish, plants, gravels & any decoration you are adding to your aquarium.

 

Breeding Platy:

Platies are live bearers & they do not lay eggs outside in water but keep them in their bodies until they are hatched & their fries are out swimming free in water.

Platies are prolific breeders. It is easy to breed them after adding males & females in same aquarium. It is difficult to spot male & female platy until they are around 4 months old. When platies reach this stage, then it is easy to spot the gender.

Platies have a common problem of eating their babies, so it is recommended to add them to a breeding tank which contains about 10 to 20 gallons of water with better filter.

Offer multiple hiding spots to your platies with dense plants so that they can find better shelter.

Platies can have up to 80 babies at once. Female platies are usually pregnant for about 24 to 30 days before they give birth to fries. Their fries can swim when they are out of mother body & they can eat variety of diets such as egg yolk, flakes & other baby diet.

 

How to Recognize Pregnant Platy:

It is simple to find pregnant platy because its abdomen becomes quite large & if the female platy skin is transparent enough then you will be able to see a couple of black eyes. She will also show a black mark on her abdomen.

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