Platy beating up Tetra...

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Danio8

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Apr 20, 2022
Messages
148
Location
Near Reno, NV, USA
I have a female platy who I've had for over a year now (She's actually the one in my profile picture). She is in a 20 gallon tall tank with a few other femal platies, 4 glofish tetras, 2 zebra danios, and 4 ember tetras. This might seem irrelevant, but I have a blue glofish, an orange one, a purpley one, and a yellow one. I inherited the blue one from a friend who was keeping it in a 2 gallon tank with 2 glofish danios :facepalm: I decided to get it a little school which consited of a few more glofish tetras from my lfs (I don't remember the exact number as it was quite awhile ago, but i want to say it was maybe 2 more). I got these fish while I had the female platy in my tank. One of the new fish I had gotten was a yellow glofish tetra. It was doing all right until one day I noticed it had shredded fins. At the time I contributed it to the blue glofish, who seemed to be at the top of the hiearchy. Then one day I came home and noticed the yellow glofish was missing an eye. He actually did ok for a surprising amount of time, before he stopped eating and I put him down. I then got a few more glofish tetras, which included another yellow one. I had noticed he had shredded fins after being in my tank for a while and I just decided to let them be and see what happened. They actually healed up quite nicely, but a few days, I noticed his fins were shredded again. I noticed that none of my other tetras ever have shredded or ripped fins so I contributed it to the dominant blue glofish again. But today I decided to sit down and watch my fish for a bit and I noticedmy female platy nipping the fins of this poor yellow glofish. So I think she's the one taking out my yellow glofish (Maybe a little of a combined effort with the dominant blue glofish, but I have seen her nip the fins of this fish multiple times now). My theory is that maybe she thinks its a plant because the fish is a neon yellow which might look kind of green? I'm not entirely sure, but I've come to the conclusion to start feeding my fish more that my platy will stop going after this fish thinking it might be food. I do 15-25% water changes every week. If anyone has any suggestions on what I should do from here, I would be grateful. Thanks!
 
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Here are shots of the tank and the yellow glofish in question. Ignore my dying plants please. They are a work in progress...



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Nipping fins can be for a couple of different reasons so it's hard to pinpoint the exact issue. One of the possibilities is that the nipper is hungry. How much and how often do you feed your fish? What are you feeding the fish?
 
Yes, I was thinking she might be hungrier. I am currently feeding them once a day with about as much food as they can eat in a minute to a minute and a half. I think I will bump this up to feeding twice a day. I feed them Omega One Freshwater Flakes.
 
Yes, I was thinking she might be hungrier. I am currently feeding them once a day with about as much food as they can eat in a minute to a minute and a half. I think I will bump this up to feeding twice a day. I feed them Omega One Freshwater Flakes.
You should bump it up to what they can eat in 2-3 minutes 2-3 times per day. That is a " normal" feeding regimen. I also would suggest adding other foods to these flakes. The Platy would benefit from greens like Spirulina flakes and the tetras and danios would like some meat in the form of frozen or live brine shrimp or frozen bloodworms or frozen or live blackworms. Variety is the best thing to feed fish because there is no one food that is totally nutritionally complete. Feed a different food at each feeding. My typical feeding was meat as the first meal, flakes as the midday meal and either live or frozen bloodworms or brine shrimp as the last meal of the day. ( while these 2 foods are not high in nutritional value, they are high in chiton which helps with digestion and poop flow. The other meals are high in nutritional value. ) (y)
 
Thank you! The live/frozen foods are sold at a shop a bit far away but I will see what I can do. Do you have any recommendations for brands that have spirulina flakes? And one last question, I am planning to upgrade to a 40 gallon breeder and get some pearl gouramis. What kind of diet should I aim to get for them?
 
Thank you! The live/frozen foods are sold at a shop a bit far away but I will see what I can do. Do you have any recommendations for brands that have spirulina flakes? And one last question, I am planning to upgrade to a 40 gallon breeder and get some pearl gouramis. What kind of diet should I aim to get for them?
I've used Ocean Nutrition brand and Cobalt Brand as they are generally higher quality brands but there may be others available today. I think Omega One made an algae flake but may have converted it to pellets ( I'm not a fan of pellets. ) but if you can get flakes, that's another good brand.
As for the Pearl Gouramis, they are omnivores so the same foods I suggested for your fish should be fine for them as well. (y)
 
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