Platy aquarium.

[Kaz]

If I was to have an aquarium just for my platies, what size should it be and how may should I get?

I was thinking in the range of 10-20 gallons and a Dwarf Gourami to control population. (Yes the platies will get most of them but the Dwarf Gourami will get more.)

Anything else somebody want to add? Would a female Gourami be as effective as a male?

[Northernguy]

No smaller than a 20.
Yes add a gourami if you like!
No it won't make a difference on sex.

[Kaz]

How many platies then?

[Northernguy]

I would start with ten,if you want fry make sure there are twice as many females.
What else is going in the tank besides possibly a gourami?

[thrakuarium]

I would even go as far as 2 male and 8 female platys to keep the nitpicking between the males down. You will probably find more male dwarf gourami available vs female anyway. The males travel better when it comes to dwarfs. Just be extra picky on the gourami. If they dont have perfect finnage, wait for the next batch. You'll want to add him last anyway to keep his territorial urges down. 20 gal minimum imo with a gourami.

[Kaz]

I would start with ten,if you want fry make sure there are twice as many females.
What else is going in the tank besides possibly a gourami?

Plants but other than that I haven't come up with any other ideas.

What else do you reccomend?

(Would 3 males, 7 females work?)

[troy]

Well if you want the fry to get eaten you shouldn't add plants. That combo will work.

[Kaz]

Well if you want the fry to get eaten you shouldn't add plants. That combo will work.

I figured the addition of a gourami would counter the plants protection.

Besides if I can find a way to donate the mature fry that survive to the LFS, I should be good, Right?

Oh and would it have a negative impact on the fish health if they eat a bunch of the fry? Because with 7 females, I'd be gettin' a looooot of fry.

[Northernguy]

They will never eat all the fry. You will be having to get rid of the fry.
Start wit that. You will know what else you want in there in a few weeks.It will take that long to build enough of a bio-load to support anything else.

[Kaz]

Alright, I'm not sure about so many baby machines, perhaps 2 males and 5 females, a Dwarf gourami and something else that could work with whats left.

Would 6 neon-sized tetras top that off?

Or is that too much?:help:

[Alfcea]

I think a tank full of platies only would be an awesome sight... but of course that is just my opinion. I wouldn't worry too much about the babies. They will get eaten sooner or later if there are enough healthy adults, but just to be sure, do not add any plants....

[terrapin24h]

a small school of buenos aires tetras in place of the gourami might also be a choice if you get a 29gal or 30gal. I started out with 4, and they are a good fish, a bit on the tough side. I can say they are absolute fry killers. They can get sizable though, waaaaaayyyyyy bigger than cardinals. I have 6 now, all about 3" long. Really pretty fish, not as much of a spaz as the smaller tetras can be. BIG eaters

--chris

[DrNic]

We have a 20G platty tank right now. I wasn't sure how many to put in when I started so we started with 5. I lost 2 due to an unfortunate Python incident and I recently picked up 3 more, so we currently have 6 (3M, 3F) with a spotted cory.

I'm hoping to pickup at least one more cory, and another 3-4 females soon.

With a 1:1 M:F ratio, we see the females get pregnant, and subsequently drop the fry, but thus far we've never seen any alive in the tank. My wife REALLY wants baby fish so I'm going to pickup a breeder net to put pregnant moms in and see if that helps us keep them alive.

[Northernguy]

Why not dwarf cories?
Tetras might get nippy in a ten with the platys.

Nic you should add some more corys.They do much better in schools.

[Kaz]

There is a certain difficulty of acquiring pygmy cories in my area but maybe I'll give it a go.

It's all theretical right now because this is mostly to get the platies out of my 30 so I can free up more space for cories.

I'm in love with aquatic plants though, is there any way I can have craploads of plants in there and still not have too many fry?

Are there cetain plants I can have in there?

The plants I'm thinking of are some Crypts, Anubis, Java fern and mabye a fewSwords.