Help - tank overpopulated

[Nickymidds25]

Hello, I have a 40L tank with variety of fish - Danios, neon tetra and platy. I am pretty inexperienced fish keeper (tank was for my 12 yo daughter) we've had it for 2 years now. When we bought platy bought all the same gender to prevent breeding but were not informed they can change gender. We now have a massively overpopulated tank. I've checked with the shop we originally bought them in (pets at home) but they won't take any fish back to alleviate numbers. I'm at a loss what to do to manage the situation - they just keep breeding!

Any advice much appreciated!

 

[Aiken Drum]

Try an aquatics store who are more likely to take in unwanted fish than pets at home. A LFS may give you some store credit if its something they can resell. There are also fish rescue services that will take unwanted fish. We had a recent thread about one such UK based service recently.

https://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f23/cost-of-living-fish-rescue-servise-uk-only-380500.html

You might be able to sell unwanted fish privately, but i dont see a huge demand for platys.

Platys can't change gender. If they are producing fry either you had males and females to start with, or you had females that where already pregnant. Females store sperm and can produce fry multiple times for up to a year after breeding. Unless you bought from a single sex tank, and the fish where separated before breeding age, the chances are any females are already pregnant.

Going forward you need to either stop keeping livebearers altogether or ensure they are single sex. Separate out males from females and keep one or the other (or keep them in separate tanks). If you keep the females remember they will continue to produce fry for maybe a year, so you need to ensure you continue to separate out any males as quickly as they can be identified. They can breed at 4 months old.

If im being brutally honest, from the fish you have only neon tetras should be in a 40 litre tank and even those would be better in a bigger tank.

 

[Jacky12]

Perhaps you can give the unwanted fish away through a local Facebook group, assuming they’re around your town. I belong to two in my city. I am not a Facebook person & only created an account because my favorite online tropical fish store suggested I join their group. I think he had enough of my never ending questions. His group led me to my favorite 2 local groups where I get terrific deals on used equipment and magnificent fish free or for next to nothing. Many of the fish are not available locally & would cost me $40 for overnight shipping alone.

Since Aiken mentioned larger tanks, let me add I found several in the local Facebook groups. I’m picking up a 75 G tomorrow that comes with a nice big canister filter, a glass lid, high end programmable 48” LED light strip, a fancy automatic feeder & more. Everything is less than a year old. The owner paid $600+ and I’m paying $200. 75 G tanks have been difficult to find here lately.