Platies and Cardinals?

[Trailblazur]

Is it possible to get the water parameters to where Platies and Cardinals can thrive together?🤔🤔🤔

[TheSwissAquarist]

Seeing as they’re a pretty common fish in the trade, I expect that they can live in wide range of water parameters.

[Lennie]

To live, maybe. To thrive, no.

cardinals are almost always wild caught. Wild caught fish are usually more sensitive to changes and they want to be kept in what water they are used to be in. So they want quite acidic and soft water.

Livebearers are the opposite. They want hard water with high ph.

So not an ideal duo and cannot really thrive together. In terms of parameters they exactly want the opposite sides.

Could be nicer if you go for fish that share similar parameters, or at least ones that are tank bred in your local parameters so may have easier time adjusting.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Lennie

[ccurtis]

Aqua Huna’s cardinal tetras are tank bred in Indonesia. I have asked them and confirmed. I currently have a batch in with some platy’s among a bunch of other fish and they are doing great. 

[Trailblazur]

On 5/28/2023 at 10:47 AM, ccurtis said:

Aqua Huna’s cardinal tetras are tank bred in Indonesia. I have asked them and confirmed. I currently have a batch in with some platy’s among a bunch of other fish and they are doing great. 

That’s perfect and exactly what I was looking at lol. Thanks

 

 what are your water parameters and temperature?

[FLFishChik]

On 5/28/2023 at 10:47 AM, ccurtis said:

Aqua Huna’s cardinal tetras are tank bred in Indonesia. I have asked them and confirmed. I currently have a batch in with some platy’s among a bunch of other fish and they are doing great. 

Also bought my Cardinals through Aqua Huna… I also have hard water. They have been thriving for more than a year in this tank. Only losses I had were in shipping. I can’t speak for other sellers if theirs are tank raised or Wild caught, but Aqua Huna’s are tank bred and seem to do fine/adapt to harder water without issues in my experience 

[ccurtis]

On 5/28/2023 at 2:35 PM, Trailblazur said:

That’s perfect and exactly what I was looking at lol. Thanks

 

 what are your water parameters and temperature?

My co-op heater is set at 74. My tank usually runs between 75 and 76 degrees. Here’s a photo of my parameters. 

[anewbie]

On 5/28/2023 at 9:35 AM, Lennie said:

To live, maybe. To thrive, no.

cardinals are almost always wild caught. Wild caught fish are usually more sensitive to changes and they want to be kept in what water they are used to be in. So they want quite acidic and soft water.

Livebearers are the opposite. They want hard water with high ph.

So not an ideal duo and cannot really thrive together. In terms of parameters they exactly want the opposite sides.

Could be nicer if you go for fish that share similar parameters, or at least ones that are tank bred in your local parameters so may have easier time adjusting.

Actually a large number of cardinals are tank bred either in Florida or Asia; however I have found consistently that tank bred cardinals seem less healthy than wc so only buy wc these days - having said that they are not as bad as tank bred neon which have very poor genetics. Part of the issue is that it is rather 'tricky' to breed cardinals or perhaps i should say takes more than the casual expertise of mixing water and fish. 

 

Having said this they will live longer in soft water - it is genetics. That doesn't mean they won't live in harder water but platies like most livebearers really need (relatively speaking) fairly hard water to 'thrive' so at that point you will be pushing the limits of what is tolerable by cardinals long term. Naturally you can keep them together just don't expect them to live as long as they would in more favorable conditions. My tap water is on the soft side of thing with tds 130 but i keep guppies. They breed faster than they die but they don't really live as long as they should. When i move next month i'll be moving them to their own little hard water aquarium as my sa fishes will be getting much softer water. 

To make matters worse cardinals do a lot better in warm waters - while you can find a temperature that is in the upper range that is favorable for platties that is good for cardinals; I would not keep cardinals at 74... 

Anyway it isn't really the answer you want but that is the nature of these things. 

Edited May 29, 2023 by anewbie

[Lennie]

On 5/29/2023 at 3:13 AM, anewbie said:

Actually a large number of cardinals are tank bred either in Florida or Asia;

good to know,

I remember watching coop videos and Cory saying they are usually wildcaught, and tankbreds are more expensive so generally stores don't carry them a lot, but that might've changed lately! Also my lfs guy said he saw them being raised in like huge pools but in their main environment, so basically bred  in nature but kinda in captivity, I assume would still need those natural parameters.

Thanks for sharing

Edited May 29, 2023 by Lennie

[anewbie]

On 5/29/2023 at 3:51 AM, Lennie said:

good to know,

I remember watching coop videos and Cory saying they are usually wildcaught, and tankbreds are more expensive so generally stores don't carry them a lot, but that might've changed lately! Also my lfs guy said he saw them being raised in like huge pools but in their main environment, so basically bred  in nature but kinda in captivity, I assume would still need those natural parameters.

Thanks for sharing

The florida ones aren't so bad - i forgot the name of the company but when the pandemic hit everything went south. I don't trust anything from asia these days - too much cross breeding and hormones in their breeding farms. Anyway in good conditions cardinals can live close to 10 years. They really are lovely fishes - pitty i can't keep them with my angels any longer...

[Lennie]

On 5/29/2023 at 5:03 PM, anewbie said:

pitty i can't keep them with my angels any longer...

adult angels bully them too?

After reading some people losing rummy noses to angels, I'm speechless. I wouldnt be shocked if they snack on cardinals too.

I have two angels in my 42g tank with a rummynose school. One black veil, and one platinum. They don't get that huge I guess, but I hope they don't cause any trouble in the future :)) 

 

[anewbie]

On 5/29/2023 at 9:06 AM, Lennie said:

adult angels bully them too?

After reading some people losing rummy noses to angels, I'm speechless. I wouldnt be shocked if they snack on cardinals too.

I have two angels in my 42g tank with a rummynose school. One black veil, and one platinum. They don't get that huge I guess, but I hope they don't cause any trouble in the future :)) 

 

They don't bully them; one day one of the large males discover they were tasty .... why bully them when you can swallow them whole.

[Lennie]

On 5/29/2023 at 5:08 PM, anewbie said:

They don't bully them; one day one of the large males discover they were tasty .... why bully them when you can swallow them whole.

I wonder how he did not get bloated after eating a cardinal tetra…

one of my angels got bloated and died within a few minutes after eating small bloodworms. That was the day I stopped feeding bloodworms to any fish. One weird occasion in all these years of fishkeeping.

I can’t imagine them eating a cardinal with that lean body/stomach!