Platy male to female ratio

[lalalameg]

I currently have a 20g tank with 4 platys, 1 male and 3 females. I know the rule to have 1 male to 2-3 females, but I was wondering if I could have say, 5-7 females to 1 male? Or would that potentially stress him out?

 

[vanimal]

It should be fine. It's usually the females that get stressed not the males. But that many females will keep him pretty busy if you plan on breeding them lol

 

[lalalameg]

Great! I didn't want to have to fill my tank all with platys...they're great, but I already have more than I want. I really would like to avoid fry, however the fish section at Meijer doesn't really know the difference between males and females so I got stuck with a male :/ Thanks for your help though!

 

[vanimal]

No problem

 

[Aetherbound]

Wait a month or two you'll have plenty of new platies to pick and choose tankmates from. If there is a lot of deco and hiding spots that is.

 

[tamtam]

sexing them is pretty easy. When I've bought mine I've picked them out and told the worker which ones I wanted. lol. So much easier this way than gambling on them giving me what I ask for

 

[vanimal]

sexing them is pretty easy. When I've bought mine I've picked them out and told the worker which ones I wanted. lol. So much easier this way than gambling on them giving me what I ask for

How do you tell?

 

[JerseyGirl1385]

This should help you

 

[tamtam]

How do you tell?

The picture that jersey girl posted is a good visual. This method can be adopted to most live-bearers i believe.

 

[Mrs.h2012]

Also since you said you wanted to avoid having fry but got stuck with a male along with your females, I dont see how you can avoid having fry, there's also a good chance that your females are already pregnant. I would just let nature take its course if one of your females is/gets pregnant, i would say chances are the fry will get eaten if they dont have anywhere to hide. You can always add more plants and whatnot I create a cover for the fry if you want, that would be up to you.

 

[tamtam]

Great! I didn't want to have to fill my tank all with platys...they're great, but I already have more than I want. I really would like to avoid fry, however the fish section at Meijer doesn't really know the difference between males and females so I got stuck with a male :/ Thanks for your help though!

honestly if you don't want fry the best thing you can do is get only males. Females can store sperm for up to something like 3 months or more and can become pregnant at any point.

Getting all males is really your only way to be sure you won't have fry. Though in a community tank the fry are most likely going to be eaten unless you aid by giving them lots of cover/etc.

 

[BlaseMrNiceguy]

I have had 5 batches of fry born in my community and have a ton of decor and still have only had one dry make it too adulthood. Depending on what you have in the tank (shrimp, fish, etc.) the fry most certainly won't survive. Shrimp, especially ghost shrimp love to munch on sleeping fry. Live bearers aren't like most other fish they have no parenting skills once the fry pop out they are on their own. That being said every other fish in your tank, with the exception to herbivores will view the fry as food. Now all males is the best way to avoid fry it is not the best way to avoid aggression more than likely an alpha male will take over and stress all the other makes to death then adding more males would be like a little fish thunder dome seeing who comes out alive. But im assuming you knew that because u wanted all females in the first place.