platy troubles...i think

[alcarinhwesta]

I'm a fairlyy new aquarist. My husband and I started working on our tank about 2 months ago. We've succussfully had 4 cardinal tetras, 2 pepper corries and a nerite snail. Today we picked up 6 marigold platys and although 5 of them are happily adjusting, we have one off by itself, burrowing in the gravel and chasing the other fish away. Any ideas?

(I was going to add a photo, but for some reason the app isn't letting me)

 

[alLexX]

this doesnt relate to your question,but you should get more cories,they are schooling fish.how big is your tank?

 

[alcarinhwesta]

I have a 20-long. We were going to get two more cories today, but the shipment hadn't come through.

 

[alLexX]

that may be overstocked...or i could be confusing plsatys with mollies.

 

[alcarinhwesta]

The platy are about an inch long. We have the tank at 65% capacity.

 

[alLexX]

are you going by the inch per gallon rule?because if you are,you should know,its very extremely innacurate.

 

[Rosenweiss]

Your stocking is fine. Platties are smaller than mollies.

Back to your question, did you cycle your tank? And do you know what your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate readings are? =]

 

[alcarinhwesta]

(Thank you for solving the stocking issue) I don't know the specific numbers. Our fish store of choice does our water testing and after we went through the tank cycle, they approved us for our fish. The only specific number I know is the pH level, which is 7.9 (high, I know).

 

[Rosenweiss]

7.9 is not that high, so unless you acclimated them wrong (just floating the bag, for instance), it's probably not pH shock.

But about the numbers, if you want to keep your fish healthy, you really should buy a liquid test kit (the preffered one here is the API freshwater master test kit). This way you can monitor your numbers yourself. Often fish stores just tell you what you want to hear or use inaccurate test strips.

 

[alcarinhwesta]

I'll look into that, thanks!

As an update to our platy, (s)he (I don't know how to sex them just yet) seems to be social in small bursts and readily ate this morning, but now (s)he's back to burrowing again.

This is very different behavior that when we lost one if cories due to distress, so I'm kinda stumped.

 

[Rosenweiss]

I'm not a platy expert, so if your tank is cycled and she isn't showing signs of illness such as loss of appetite, patches of fungus, discoloration, swimming issues or anything, I'm not sure I"ll be able to help any more...

but be sure to update us on parameters when you find them out!

 

[alcarinhwesta]

Thank you for the advice you were able to give. I went to our fish store (url at the bottom of this post) to price liquid testing kits and was able to get some insight to the platy's issue. The man I spoke with suggested that either the platy is female and she might be nesting to give birth or it is just an aggressive male marking his territory. (He couldn't be accurate without actually seeing the fish) either way, he told me not to worry.
http://www.dolphinpetvillage.com/about.php

 

[Rosenweiss]

Okay! Well, I hope that's it!

 

[alcarinhwesta]

In the interest of keeping you updated: I was dumb enough to name her even though I was concerned. River passed away this morning.

 

[Rosenweiss]

I'm sorry to hear that...