Platy fish don’t want to eat

[iwanttostayanonymous 92074]

I have a 15 gallon tank with 3 guppies and 3 platies. I feed them twice a day about 1/32 of a teaspoon per feeding. I have a rock cave where my fish can go into. Two of my platies never come out of the cave. When I watch my my fish eat all my guppies plus the one Platy race up to the surface of the water and gobble up the food but my other two platies stay in the cave and don’t come out. The other fish eat up all the food. I have tried two types of flakes, freeze dried brine shrimp, and green peas but they won’t move out of the cave. I’ve removed the cave on Monday to see if the platies would eat but they just stayed at the bottom corner of my tank. One Tuesday I put the cave back in. I’ve had the fish for over 20 weeks and they didn’t start this habit and until 2 weeks ago. On the first week they stayed in the cave most of the time but would rush up to me for feeding time. This week they haven’t been eating at all. They look healthy and don’t seem to have anything wrong. One of the hiding platies is a female that I’m 85% sure is pregnant. She is bigger than the other two male platies but isn’t growing anymore. She has been pregnant for 6 weeks and hasn’t dropped any fry. Please help

This is a portion of food I give twice a day

[Hally M.]

I have a few questions for you. A possible cause for them not eating could mean they are stressed in some way. Did you quarantine  them when you first purchased them? What are the parameters? Any shimmying or abnormal swimming movements? What’s the brand of flake that you’ve been using? From my experience livebearers such as these can be delicate and sensitive 🙂

Do you use any supplements to raise up the Gh and Kh? Wonder shell adds lots of minerals. crushed coral can raise the Ph too.

Edited December 17, 2022 by Hally M.

[iwanttostayanonymous 92074]

I quarantined my fish before putting them in the tank. GH is at 150 Nitrate 3 Nitrite 0 Cl2 0 Alkalinity 80 KH 120 pH 7.6. They haven’t really been swimming at all so just now I took the cave out of the tank and saw they were swimming fine. I have been feeding them Fluval Bug Bites and I have also tried TetraMin Tropical Flakes. I have a question about the crushed coral. I bought some and I’m not sure if I should change out all the substrate and then put in the crushed coral as the new substrate or if I can just put in a certain amount of it on top of the gravel I have.

Edited December 17, 2022 by iwanttostayanonymous 92074

[Hally M.]

You can definitely mix in the coral with the substrate. Or if you want to put it in the filter if you don’t like the look of it on the substrate. 
 

The parameters seem decent. The crushed coral will help raise that Ph of course 🙂

 

 

[iwanttostayanonymous 92074]

Thanks so much. Sorry about that betta though

[Hally M.]

I’m not sure what’s wrong with them unfortunately. Sometimes depending on where you purchase them they can have  weak genes and overall just a poor quality fish. We’re they purchased from a good quality store/breeder?

Thank you I appreciate it 😅 he’s giving me a heart attack I feel so bad for the little fella. I tried to not get attached but I ended up naming him Major. He’s so sweet it breaks my heart. 

[iwanttostayanonymous 92074]

Probably not. I got them from pet smart because that’s the only place close to my house to buy fish. I have a really good fish store I love going to but it’s 45 minutes away. Do you recommend buying fish online? I HATE Petsmart after my last visit. I saw around 8 dead fish and at least 10 fish needed immediate help. One tank did not have the oxygen pump working and so all the poor fish were just at the top gasping for air. Almost 75% of the bettas their ether had swim bladder disease or dropsy. The tanks are always overcrowed full of pregnant females. I kind of feel bad for the workers to because they have no clue of what they are doing. But at the same time they should have a clue of what to do.

I wanted to see if petsmart had any guppies but after seeing a fish literally die and get sucked up to the filter I left.

[Hally M.]

Yeah I would say that’s a good choice to buy online. Petsmart/Petco can be tricky. Some stores are great and some don’t always sell good quality fish. I’ve never had good experiences with their livebearers they’re just so sensitive sadly.