DarthRevan Posted October 23, 2021 Share Posted October 23, 2021 So I’ve had my 40 breeder set up a while now. I have a betta, 4 adult platies, 5 juveniles, and one of the females just had about 20 fry. The adults are 2 males and 2 females. One male constantly harasses and chases the other, and I know it’s because the M/F ratio is off. None of my LFS could give me females, every time I got home it would end up being a male and I’d have to take it back. I found a local breeder who assured me I have 5 female juveniles now, however that didn’t lower the aggression at all. My betta is super, super peaceful and he’s been getting beat up pretty bad. It always happens at night, first he had some chunks taken out of his fins, now his dorsal fins are completely gone and someone’s taking chunks out of his tail. I’m not sure which one is doing it. It could be the aggressive one, although he never pays attention to the betta during the day. The one that gets chased doesn’t always get to eat, so it could be him. Or it could be the female that was pregnant because she’s been super aggressive lately too. I can’t find anyone to rehome the platies, no one wants them apparently haha. So I just got a separate tank today and I’m setting it up to have the betta by himself with maybe some Pygmy Cory’s. My question is, I still want a centerpiece fish for my main tank. Would a pair of Apistos hold their ground against the bullies, or should I just give up and let the platies run the tank? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waka88 Posted October 23, 2021 Share Posted October 23, 2021 You sure they are Platy? I know I've seen Mollies and Swordtails mislabeled as Platy before. Like I noticed a bunch of black swordtail female were in a tank with assorted Platy, and of those gold flecked mollies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CalmedByFish Posted October 23, 2021 Share Posted October 23, 2021 On 10/22/2021 at 9:22 PM, Waka88 said: You sure they are Platy? I know I've seen Mollies and Swordtails mislabeled as Platy before. That's worth considering for sure. No clue about apistos, but I thought I'd point out that there are a lot of platy colors, so if you do decide to let platies run the tank, you could turn it into a tank-shaped box of crayons! 🙂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthRevan Posted October 23, 2021 Author Share Posted October 23, 2021 I’m 99% sure they are lol. I do have a black swordtail Molly in there as well, just happened to get caught in the net at the store. Here’s a picture, it’s kinda hard to see so you might have to zoom in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PineSong Posted October 23, 2021 Share Posted October 23, 2021 I think we need a moderator or someone to rotate that photo. I'm not familiar with platies ever being aggressive to each other or to other species whether they are pregnant or not--I've kept all male tanks, all female tanks and mixed sex tanks and not had any fins nipped ever. It sounds like you did the right thing by removing your poor betta. I don't know about apistos so will leave that for others to comment on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beardedbillygoat1975 Posted October 23, 2021 Share Posted October 23, 2021 Those are platys! I think you never know when you’ll get an aggressive fish so it’s definitely possible. I don’t think smaller Apistos (trifasciata, borelli, hongsloi) would hold their own against aggressive livebearers - maybe if you get an adult pair of Apisto cacatoides or Bolivian rams but they’ll not be happy and breed in a tank where they’re trying to defend themselves constantly against a group of platys. With cichlids that could mean finding alot Of dead platys one day when they go over the edge. For me one question to ask is which fish are you passionate about? Maybe kribs would work or Nannacara they tend to be slightly bigger then apistogramma. I think the other issue is the dwarfs from South America tend to like soft water to breed well while livebearers like hard water - you can get them both to live in same conditions not sure they’ll thrive. African dwarf pairs are not afraid to let other fish know what’s what. A single Angelfish could work in there and they’ll not take any 💩 from platys. I love festivum as well and a singleton could work. Instead of cichlids we could look at other livebearers like swords or mollies as the centerpiece fish. Other option would be gouramis - honeys or female dwarf gourami. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthRevan Posted October 23, 2021 Author Share Posted October 23, 2021 On 10/22/2021 at 9:24 PM, PineSong said: I think we need a moderator or someone to rotate that photo. I'm not familiar with platies ever being aggressive to each other or to other species whether they are pregnant or not--I've kept all male tanks, all female tanks and mixed sex tanks and not had any fins nipped ever. Yeah I’m not sure why it uploaded upside down lol. Probably an Apple thing. But yeah I got the platies because I was originally going for mollies but I heard they can fin nip. But these platies have been very aggressive. I originally had another male that harassed the current male in here, when I took him out then the other one started being the bully instead. The one that gets bullied now seems to nip anyone he can when he gets free, then immediately gets chased back into the plants. The pregnant one wasn’t aggressive before, but it’s been about a week since she had her fry and she’s been chasing the Molly off a lot, and chasing others away from food. Even some of the juveniles are starting to chase each other off when I feed. And I feed twice a day, I actually think I overfeed. I’m not sure what their deal is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthRevan Posted October 23, 2021 Author Share Posted October 23, 2021 On 10/22/2021 at 9:33 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said: Those are platys! I think you never know when you’ll get an aggressive fish so it’s definitely possible. I don’t think smaller Apistos (trifasciata, borelli, hongsloi) would hold their own against aggressive livebearers - maybe if you get an adult pair of Apisto cacatoides or Bolivian rams but they’ll not be happy and breed in a tank where they’re trying to defend themselves constantly against a group of platys. With cichlids that could mean finding alot Of dead platys one day when they go over the edge. For me one question to ask is which fish are you passionate about? Maybe kribs would work or Nannacara they tend to be slightly bigger then apistogramma. I think the other issue is the dwarfs from South America tend to like soft water to breed well while livebearers like hard water - you can get them both to live in same conditions not sure they’ll thrive. African dwarf pairs are not afraid to let other fish know what’s what. A single Angelfish could work in there and they’ll not take any 💩 from platys. I love festivum as well and a singleton could work. Instead of cichlids we could look at other livebearers like swords or mollies as the centerpiece fish. Other option would be gouramis - honeys or female dwarf gourami. I was looking at the cacatoides because I like the reds! I’m not too worried about breeding them, I wouldn’t have anywhere to put the fry. But if they will just be miserable all the time I don’t want to do that to them. I did look at Kribs too, I would definitely like them I just didn’t know if they’d stand their ground or not. Yeah I live in Phoenix so I have pretty hard water, about a 7.6 pH. I think we have local breeders that raise kribs and apistos in our water. I know for sure we have a lot of Ram breeders. I’ve never heard of Nannacara I’ll have to look them up! And I did think about African cichlids too but I don’t know which ones I’d be able to keep. They’d definitely have to not be plant eaters or dig up the substrate lol, I have a lot of plants. I’m also not sure about an Angelfish, I’ll have to do more research. But thank you, you’ve given me some great ideas, I’ve got some YouTube videos to watch! 😂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goosedub Posted October 23, 2021 Share Posted October 23, 2021 I think that most fish will adapt to a wide variety of conditions. You just need something with a little attitude. Kribs would do it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anewbie Posted October 23, 2021 Share Posted October 23, 2021 First apisto is a genus and there are 10's of readily available species many with different behavior and size. Generally speaking the most common species will hang near the bottom and the platy tend torwards the top (along with the betta); however if there is aggression between the two species it would depend on the specific apistogramma species as to whether it could hold its own; though it would help if you had more hiding areas/natural caves. Kribs could hold their own but they might go a bit further than holding their owns... Also never mix swordtails and platy as they can cross breed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flumpweesel Posted October 23, 2021 Share Posted October 23, 2021 I'd also vote kribs a pair are really interesting to watch and stay low in the tank. Beautiful fish that can stick up for themselves if they bothered but don't seem to seek out a fight 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthRevan Posted October 23, 2021 Author Share Posted October 23, 2021 On 10/23/2021 at 6:23 AM, anewbie said: Also never mix swordtails and platy as they can cross breed. I thought about removing her but my roommate really likes her 😂 Also, she never pays attention to the other fish. She just swims up and down the glass all day, I assume due to the reflection. Except when her and the pregnant platy get in a nipping match. And the males don’t even acknowledge her. The alpha chases around the same female all day, and the other one hides most of the day. It sounds like Kribs may be my best bet. I like them as well as apistos so I think that’ll work out. I’m planning on rearranging some of the hardscape to make room for a cave structure so they’ll have somewhere to try to spawn if they want to. Thanks everyone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anewbie Posted October 23, 2021 Share Posted October 23, 2021 There are apisto species i prefer to kribs and i also think are both more interesting and attractive; but there are apisto species i strongly dislike and in those cases prefer kribs. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobbit Posted October 23, 2021 Share Posted October 23, 2021 I have fairly aggressive platys as well—I’m surprised, since I’d never heard anyone warn about that. I had two summer tubs of platys and I ended up with only one adult male in each. That could be just coincidence… but now that I have them inside and the two males have their own section, I actually had to put up a mini divider so the smaller male could get away from the larger one. I think he would have chased the smaller male to death. On the female side of the tank, there’s definitely one dominant mama who tries to chase everyone away from the food. There are seven of them total, so the aggression is very spread out, but it’s certainly there. She’ll push everyone around a bit even between meals. Since I’m breeding these platys, I’m planning to rotate the aggressive male out as soon as I get a juvenile with colors/genetics I like. I do wonder if it’s like roosters—aggressive males produce aggressive sons, but you can get docile roosters if you selectively breed for it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthRevan Posted October 23, 2021 Author Share Posted October 23, 2021 On 10/23/2021 at 4:20 PM, Hobbit said: I have fairly aggressive platys as well—I’m surprised, since I’d never heard anyone warn about that. I had two summer tubs of platys and I ended up with only one adult male in each. That could be just coincidence… but now that I have them inside and the two males have their own section, I actually had to put up a mini divider so the smaller male could get away from the larger one. I think he would have chased the smaller male to death. On the female side of the tank, there’s definitely one dominant mama who tries to chase everyone away from the food. There are seven of them total, so the aggression is very spread out, but it’s certainly there. She’ll push everyone around a bit even between meals. Since I’m breeding these platys, I’m planning to rotate the aggressive male out as soon as I get a juvenile with colors/genetics I like. I do wonder if it’s like roosters—aggressive males produce aggressive sons, but you can get docile roosters if you selectively breed for it. Haha well I’m glad to know it’s not just me 😂 I was like why does no one warn this can happen?! I guess it’s not very common though. Hopefully the ones you breed don’t become aggressive too! Good luck 🍀 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobbit Posted October 23, 2021 Share Posted October 23, 2021 On 10/23/2021 at 7:25 PM, DarthRevan said: Hopefully the ones you breed don’t become aggressive too! Good luck 🍀 Thank you! Fingers crossed! And I hope you find some nice, slightly brutal fish who will put up with your current group. 😄 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthRevan Posted October 24, 2021 Author Share Posted October 24, 2021 Only slightly brutal though 😂 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now