# Why can't I keep platies alive?



## myexplodingcat (Apr 9, 2014)

I have a weensy little community tank and, since I love platies, I'd love to keep a few of them with the rest of my fish. I keep male platies as not to end up overstocking the tank with babies. But they keep dying on me without a whole lot of physical symptoms to tell me why, and the rest of the fish are always fine.

Tank specs:
10 gallons
77* F, as maintained by a reliable heater and submersible thermometer
HEAVILY planted NPT
Not much chance of decorations being toxic; there are only live plants and driftwood
It gets a few gallons changed about once a month, or if I decide it needs it.
Good filter; strong but it pours out onto the driftwood so it gets baffled somewhat; the driftwood blocks off about 1/3 - 1/2 of the tank from the flow so that area is much stiller water. Like, you can't see the cabomba on that side of the tank waving in the flow.

Stocking:
1 betta
8 neons
2 guppies
...and trying to put in two male platies, but they keep kicking it.

In a tank packed with plants, that's not unreasonable, I think. AqAdvisor says that's 122% stocked, which (in normal-people terms) means fully stocked and pretty safe, especially with all the flora.

The other fish are perfectly healthy. They're zooming around the tank and being happy and colorful and normal. The platies that die don't give much warning--they randomly just become lethargic, and then the next day they're gone. Even if they were healthy before, with no signs of illness.

Two things of note, though. Whenever I get platies (usually I get two), there always seems to be the sickly one that dies in a couple days, a week or two tops, and the one that's super healthy, and I can never seem to spot it in the store/bag. I feel like I should have a second hospital/QT tank because usually what I do is separate out the sick one and leave the healthy-looking one in the 10g, in an attempt not to let it catch whatever the sickly looking one has. Even the healthy-looking ones tend to die off after a month or whatever, though.

Other point: the last platy that died had one symptom, aside from the usual lethargy I see. He seemed bloated. But he rarely came out during feeding time. I know there's a ton of hidden algae pockets among all those plants, but after the other fish attack the food I give, there's not much left anywhere in the tank. So what's the issue with this bloating thing I was seeing? Internal parasites are supposed to make fish skinnier, right?

Platies are supposed to be hardy. I'm not sure what the problem is.

Oh! One more thing.
Chemicals in the tank. I use Prime for my water conditioner and I dose Flourish Comprehensive, Iron, and Potassium a little heavier than the bottle says for the plants, because they grow better with the slightly higher dosing. As far as I can tell, the fertilizer gets used up, but I can back it off if platies are really sensitive to one fert or another.


----------



## myexplodingcat (Apr 9, 2014)

Am I just having really bad luck with pet store fish? I don't know what could be better in my tank. None of the fish are hostile--the betta's super chill--there's plenty of swimming room and algae to graze on, everyone else is healthy, the temp is consistent...

...but most of the platies I get die in a month or two, tops. If it's just crappy store care, that's one thing. If it's some issue with my tank, I don't want to be killing critters that would otherwise live.

Is it maybe a pH issue? If so, why isn't it affecting my guppies? Because they're just fine... There's probably some pH fluctuation when I do water changes because the peat-based soil I use tints the water and probably lowers the pH, and it takes a while to do the same thing to new water. Are platies particularly sensitive to that?


----------



## lilnaugrim (Mar 27, 2013)

Idk, I can't keep Platy's alive either in any of my tanks. I have extremely low pH though and they are hard water/high pH fish. So I scanned your post but don't think you said anything about it? If you did, I apologize!

But yes, I keep guppies and breed them in my 5.0 pH just fine, yet I can't keep Platy's alive either more than a week or two. But I've seen others with this issue too and I can't find any real correlation between those who can keep them and those who can't. The only common thing myself and a few others have is having lower pH, though, theirs weren't as low as mine, I think it was around 6.5 IIRC. I know my store's around me all have pH around 7.0 and keep it around that so it could be that.

Your stores could be getting in sick fish as well or something at their store making them sick. I'd ask the stores what they're pH and GH are or if they can find out (if they're LFS's then they should know, chain stores should be able to test it if they're nice people) And then find out what your pH and GH are at least so you can compare.

That's all I have so far till you answer back ^^


----------



## RussellTheShihTzu (Mar 19, 2013)

It's been years since I've had Platies but I seem to remember my fish person said they are sensitive to pH changes. Perhaps you could do smaller, more frequent water changes if you try for more. Like half a gallon once or twice a week and see if that makes any difference in mortality rates.


----------

