Molly, Platy or Swordtail

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Mark Hewitt

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Jan 4, 2010
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Location
Chester-le-Street, UK
For my next shoal of fish I've narrowed it down to these three, as they seem to be the most likely candidates to be able to get on with the current tank inhabitants, and be able to take relatively high pH (7.8 ), and most importantly add some colour to the tank!

I intend to keep a shoal of 4 or 5 of them, but which ones would fair best considering I don't want them to breed, so I'll probably be keeping all males. I know some species can get territorial when there are a group of just males together.
 
I have four swords and two mollies.. they all kinda hang together. Swords are supposed to be in shoals of 1 male to 3 females.
 
Male swordtails can be extremely aggressive towards one another. Male mollies also, just to a lesser extent. If you don't want them to breed, consider keeping groups of females instead of males.

You'd probably be best off with platies. Mollies do better in brackish water as they get older and both mollies and swordtails can get 4"+. I have a red female swordtail that is about 5.5" long.

Don't worry about your pH. As long as you acclimate your fish properly, they'll adjust to the pH.

As far as shoaling goes, it really depends on the fish's personality. In my experience, most livebearers seem to like being in groups, but there's always that fish that likes to be off by itself.
 
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