Telling the sex of a Platy

Telling the sex of a platy is very easy. and can be determined in the following foolproof way.

 
If you examine the diagram above, you will notice that the anal fin of the male platy (the fin circled in red) looks different from that of the female platy (also circled in red). 

The anal fin of the male platy is called a gonopodium.

The anal fin of the female platy, on the other hand, is noticeably more fan shaped.

And that’s all there is to it! That’s how you can tell the sex of your platy.

Female Platy now more relaxed

The pregnant female platy that was harrassed by the killer guppy is more relaxed now that the offender is no longer in the lank, she was so scared she was hiding away inside the castle, but this evening she has been quite active and swimming about with the other fishes.

All the new fish have been pooing a lot since I got them so will probably have to do another water change either tomorrow or saturday.

Platy Cam Live

Broadcast Daily, Watch between 6pm and 8pm UK Time

Latest Video - Horse Face Loach

Horse Face Loach

Images of the New Fish

The new fish comprises of 2 large and 1 small yellow mickey mouse platy and 1 smaller platy but variety unknown, and also two Horse Face Loach

Six New Additions

I got four new platy females, that will keep my male happy and also company for my other two platy females, it may make the harrassed female become more confident again and stop hiding.

I also got two other fish a Horse Face Loach.

I transported them in secure bag then took them out and placed the bags with the fish in them on to of the tank water for 15 minutes, I then added some tank water to the bags twice over a 10 minute period then added the fish to the tank.

The Killer Guppy is Gone

I contacted my LFS this morning and was able to return the killer guppy, unfortunately did not get a refund or exchange, it actually seemed settled in the bag and looked innocent!

My LFS Fishworld in Oldham now can take responsibility of it.

Platy Fry Webcam

The Platy Fry webcam will be online from 7pm to 9pm tonight UK time. Check this post for more details later

White Spot

I have noticed 2 of my Platy and one of the Female Guppy has white spot. Will have to get out the treatment, will post a bit later on what I have done.

The Murdered Neon Tetra

Here is the 2nd Neon Tetra the Killer Guppy murdered. Its body was recovered from the tank and placed in this container before disposing of it.

28th December 2010

Killer Female Guppy

 

The killer guppy female has been isolated into a netted breeding tank I had and is inserted into the main tank, the guppy is actually seeming to like it as she is not looking stressed or swimming about, she seems totally calm and just gradually swimming about. Despite all this am not taking ant risks and putting her back into the main population, i will try and return her to the shop.

Other Female Guppy

The other female guppy seems to be ok, its eating all leftover food and foraging about in the gravel at bottom of tank, she seems to be ok on her own and not causing any problems.

Pregnant Platy

The pregnant platy is still cautious and hiding at the bottom of the tank and just coming up for food then disappearing again, seems she got quite a shock being attacked by the killer guppy.

Other Platys

The other two platys seem to be ok and swimming about like mad, but that's mainly cause the male is wanting to breed and she not interested so am planning on getting 4 new female platy of different colours, that is is my local shop has any.

Platy Fry 

The fry are doing good, they are now 9 days old and you can see how much they have grown now, and its possible to see the features on them.

Neon Tetras 

The neon tetras are doing ok, despite 2 being murdered by the killer guppy.

Black Widow Tetra

The black widow tetra is doing ok too, it is swimming about fine and does not have any problem being alone in the tank without other of its species. But its face still reminds me of a piranha.

Latest Tank Video

Day 19 - 27th December 2010

The plants in my aquarium are growing quite quickly, one in particular has grown about 20cm in a week, the rest have grown a lot of straggling roots, but leaving them as they will soon find a hold plus the fish seem fascinated by them.

The platy fry are now 8 days old and doing ok, 5 of them are black and gold speckled and 2 of them are a kind of leopard skinned., but i suppose they far too young to tell what colour they will become when older.

I have put the big female guppy back into the main tank, gave her 2 days of confinement in the net tank for punishment. She seems a little more settled.

The pregnant female platy is staying at the bottom of the tank and kinda out of sight, not sure if its due to stress of being attacked by the guppy the other day, she had not even come up to the glass to say hello to me like the other two do.

The Male Guppy is Dead

The male guppy had been acting strange since I bought him on Thursday, he had been staying at the surface and not really moving from the same position.

I was watching him for about 20 minutes today and he just turned on his side and went upside down and died before my eyes.

I do not think he was well at all since I got him so just proves something was wrong.

Killer Guppy

From the start the large female guppy was quite agressive and nipping tails and forcing itself to all the food. I was  watching her over the past few days and Friday she was nipping at tails and head butting my pregnant Guppy in the stomach, she was even attacking my neon tetras and nipping their fins.

The last straw was on Saturday when she really started harrassing my Guppy and also terrorising the male Guppy and also my neon tetras, she attacked my little neon and its scurried to the bottom corner of the tank out of the way. I watched it has night and and it was breating very fast and looked pretty much alone.

I isolated the female Guppy into a net tank to keep it under control.

This morning, Sunday I found my little Neon Tetra floating on the surface, dead, the killer Guppy is to blame.

Baby Fry - Update

The 7 fry are now 6 days old, i have taken them out of the net tank as it was getting too dirty so could not see them, so have put them into a clear hatchery tank as seen on the following pics and video.

I have added a piece of plant that they can hide in and also a leaf where they can lay under if the light is too much for them.

Day 17 - 25th December 201

The water was getting a bit cloudy so I have done another water change today, took 20 litres (18.3%) out and replaced it with new water. I was able to get a lot of the poo from the bottom out but still quite a bit remains.

I have also split my moss ball into 2, i tried to form a ball with each but that was not possible so just cut in half and put back into tank. The moss ball was quite tough to cut.

The New Fish - Video

You will see 2 Female Guppy, 1 Male Guppy, 1 Black Widow Tetra and a quick appearence from the Platy.

Male Guppy Video

Agressive Female Guppy

I have been watching the large female guppy,  she has been extremely agressive, nipping at my platy tails. Its also forcing its way for the food and agressivly pushing them out of the way. Not sure if she is pregnant or not but she is quite a nasty female, compared to the other passive female and male.

Day 16 - 24th December 2010

My platy fry are coming along well, they are now 5 days old now and they are certainly getting a bit bigger and you can see their features now. They just look like minatures of the parents now. They all look like they are black and gold speckled like the parents are.

I gave the fry some live daphnia yesterday and by this afternoon they all gone so guess they all been eaten, unless they escaped!

The Male Guppy

The male guppy is acting strange, maybe cause its a new tank and new surroundings but he is at the top of the tank hovering at the same spot, he has been like this for 5 hours now.

The females seem fine they foraging about in the gravel and zipping about.

The Pregnant Platy

The other female platy is getting really big now, not sure when she will give birth but when she does will let nature take it course and it will be survival of the fittest and who can outsmart being eaten.

Day 15 - The New Fish

Here are images of the new fish swimming about in the tank.

Day 15 - New Fish

I bought some new fish, 1 Male Guppy and 2 Female Guppy, plus one other fish a Black Widow Tetra.

I let the bags lay on the water for 15 minutes then added some water from the tank and left that for another 10 minutes before adding them to the tank.

Day 15

I bought a Moss Ball and added it to the tank, its hovering about 1 inch from bottom of tank.

Day 15 - 23rd December 2010

I did a water change today, syphoned out roughly 20ltrs of old water and replaced it with with new fresh water.

I added someNutrafin Aqua+Plus to de-chlorinate it.

The white filter at the top was very dirty as you can see from this image.

Day 14 - The Fry

The fry are now 4 days old now.

It is really hard to see the fry through the glass then the net tank they are in but they seem quite active and I can see some of them eating. I placed a leaf in the tank so they had somewhere to hide and a few seem to be using it but majority just lay at the bottom.

Day 14 - Wednesday 22nd December 2010

Here are the latest images of the Platy Fry and the Adult Platy

New Food for the Fish

I went out to see if I could get some fry food but no luck, i ended up buying some freeze dried food and i can crush it up more fine than I can do the flake as its slightly oily anyway its mushing up into a ball too quickly.

I noticed the Platy not interested in the River Shrimp at all, they spit it out, but they are eating the Daphinia, and so are the fry, well 3 of them are the rest just dont move much, although still alive.

Day 13 - Tuesday 21st December 2010

This morning the fish are quite active, even the fry are swimming about. I have notived though that the male platy is really chasing the one of the females about.

Day 12 - Latest Images

This fry I discovered sitting on a plant leaf in the main tank, its using its stealth not to be eaten. The rest are of the Platy Adults

Pictures of the Fry

Its 2.30pm and just fed the fry, they seem to be more active today, they already look bigger. 

The fry are now aprox 35 hours old.

These are the best images I can take of the fry, it hard to get into position with the camera. (some images look duplicated but are taken  a millisecond after so fry can be seen)

Day 12

The fry in the main tank was eaten by the female platy just after 9am. It could not just move quick enough and got trapped in the crevice between the filter and the glass.

Day 12 - 20th December 2010

Got up at 7am and switched the tank light on, it was so quiet could not see any fish excwept for 3 neon tetra's, i was wondering what was going on!.

I found 2 of the Platy hiding behind the log and the 3rd was inside the castle, the neons are another matter can only count 4 of the 11, they are probably all there but hiding!

While looking in the tank I spotted a very small fry, it is much smaller than the others I rescued and is more light and see through in colour so blending in with the gravel more.

Not sure if it will survive, but maybe speed and size might help it.

The 7 fry in the net seem ok, will feed them in a bit.

Day 11 - Feeding the fry

I have ground the flakes of food into as small as possible and put some into the netted area of the fry to give them their first feed. The flakes are floating on top but no sign of the fry moving so not sure if they are meant to swim up to get food or not.

Its 9pm and tuned the light off will see what they are like in the morning. Hopefully they will all survive.

More Fry Found

I have found another 3 baby fry, making a total of 7 now.

Day 11 - Update

The platy adults seem very interested in the net tank, they nibbling it and circling it like a shark does with prey!., they are either nibbling stuff on the net or trying to get at what is inside.

At least i was able to recover 4 fry, one i saw being eaten, so not sure how many she had in the first place, am really surprised the fry so big, cant see her holding that many or maybe she could hold many many more.

Day 11 - My fish has had babies

I crawled out of bed at 1pm and switched on my tank lights to count the fish and to my shock i saw a tiny fish, i panicked as did not want it eaten so set up a small netted enclosure and caught it, and yes its a small fry.

I have since counted another two at the bottom of the tank but will be hard to catch. They are very very fast and also blend in with the gravel a lot.

I was not expecting to have fry so soon after getting the fish a few days ago.

will they mostly been eaten already by parents?
will they be eaten?

what should I do?, what do i feed them etc?????????????????????????????????

***EDIT***
Its now 3pm and I have now recovered 4 fry and seperated them from the adults. I dont think any others are left now, probably all eaten.

Day 10

The male Platy soon quietened down, he seemed quite active for about 4 hours then just spent time sucking the cables of the heater, so there must be something tasty on it.

The females are just zipping up and down the side of the tank at the reflections of themselves.

The temp been hovering between 25.1c and 25.9c today.

I will leave the bubbles on tonight, am giving the fish an early night, turned the lights off at 9pm.

Sexually Active Platy

My Male Platy seems quite sexually active today, been watching him for 30 minutes and his thing! has been waving all over the place.

He seems more interested in the thinner female than the fatter one though.

Random Thought

Goldfish are supposed to have a tiny memory and remember hearing this when i was younger:-

Two fish are swimming together, one says "Oh, look, a Castle!" -- so excited -- swim past and continue around the circle, swimming, swimming, la, la, la,, the other fish says what is it?, the other fish says "its a castle?", and then the other says "whats a castle?", but in return the other fish says, "Oh, look a castle"

and the cycle continues......

I was wondering how long the memory of the Platy is?, what about the Neon Tetras, they are so tiny, so their brains must be microscopic, if a Goldfish is less than 10 seconds a Neon's must be 1 second?

Day 10 - Saturday 18th December 2010

Its now 10am and I have just crawled out of bed, its snowed real bad last night so pretty cold, was not sure what the tank tempearture would be, but on looking its hovering at the 25c mark.

I have turned the air bubbles and the lights on again.

The fish seem ok, and swimming about normally. I gave them their first feed since getting them yesterday, am feeding them Aqurian Tropical Fish Food.

I popped a pinch of food in and the Platy's were activly eating it but the Neon Tetras not really eating anything, one or two did, but the majority seemed oblivious to the food being added.

Day 9

Well, its now midnight, have turned off the air bubbles and the light and will let the fishes rest till the morning, then see how they are doing.

Day 9 - Fish Video

Here are 3 different videos of the fish in the aquarium.

Bubbles or No Bubbles?

Should I turn the air bubbles off at night or should I leave them on all the time?

They Poo a lot

I have noticed that the Platy's poo a lot, there is always something coming out of it, and i have only had them a few hours. And i thought goldfish were bad, but seems platy has the always poo syndrome

Day 9 - The New Fish

Well its been 2 hours since the fish was added to the tank so turned on the light and the air bubbles.

So far they seem contented. The temp of the water is 26.5c

I cannot tell the sex of the platy's, they are too quick to take a pic of them, but 2 seem to have a frilly fin near its poo hole and the other one is not frilly, just a small long needle shaped thing, so am guessing thats a male?, but am sure you will let me know.

The neon tetras look so small in the tank, but are all huddled together.

Day 9 - Video

Here is a video of the complete tank, with plants, castle, log and gravel, minus the fish.

Day 9 - Adding the Fish

I have been out and bought some fish. I have 3 Platy and 11 Neon Tetras. Was really cold day with snow and ice so managed to get them back without them freezing.

The temp of my tank is 26.1c so not sure if that is too cold or not.

Anyway, laid the bags on the water for 10 minutes then added some tank water to the bags and let it stay like that for another 10 minutes then netted the fish and added them to the tank.

Day 9 - Friday 17th December 2010

I have added the final 5 plants and the castle, I also added about another 1kg of gravel.

Have to say it looks good so far, just need to get some fish now.

Random Thoughts

Gravel:
The gravel actually looks quite good now, I had my doubts but now its in the tank and settled after a few days it looks nice and bright with a good mixture of colours, am glad i choose it and not the standard yellow or blue gravel  packets in pet shops.

Heating:

I had planned on having the heater within the filter unit as its designed to be but while i was testing things a few days ago i noticed i was struggling to get a temp over 25c, despite the heater thermostat nearly set at 30c so it looked like the 200w heater was not going to be suitable. I even tried the heater dangling in the middle of the tank just to see what would happen but it only got to about 26c and that was it.

It was then i decided that the heater was not strong enough for my tank (maybe faulty too), so got myself a 300w one and it seems to be working ok, just a pity its too long to fit in the filter unit, so its attached to the back of the tank.

Filters:

One thing that really puzzles me is the filter media. I just cannot fathom how it works.

The Juwel Compact sponges just look like pieces of plastic kind of material with holes in them, I just cant figure out how bacteria can grow on it?, especially the bottom blue one.

The water enters from the top and then down through the filters, there is a hole half way down just at the bottom of the green sponge and it gets sucked up to the pump, but then there is a hole at the bottom of the unit where the fine blue sponge is, makes me wonder how the water would get that far down as it would get sucked up through the upper hole I am sure.

Day 8 - Thursday 16th December 2010

The tank has been running ok, no leaks and water is clear now. I had set the heater thermostat at 26c but checking on the digital thermometer it seems to be hovering between 27.1c and 27.7c, although higher than expected it does not seem that bad?

I checked the ph again and it seems ok, no problems. After reading many internet articles i was expecting the ph to be all over the place but does not seem to be the case.

Day 5 - Monday 13th December 2010

I have let the tank settle for 24 hours and the water has cleared and looks much better now, am also quite happy at the result of the gravel, it looks much more bright and colourful than it did before and even when it was in the bag. I still have 2 kg left which i will add when i get the castle orniment and 2nd bubble stone in a few days time.

Now that the tank has settled i decided to add some Sera Toxivec to remove the chlorine and other bad stuff, I added 50ml to the water and also 1 scoop of Trizyme Bio-Start that I had, again some people say things like this dont work, but I had it anyway, so may as well use it, if it works it works if not then i have not lost anything by trying.

I have set the heater to 26c and will leave the tank to do its work.   So far the ph is 7 and been like this since day 1.

Day 4 - Sunday 12th December 2010

I started to set up the tank, so got my filter media, heater, gravel and plants all to hand and started my set up.

Heater:              300w 38cm completely submersible automatic aquarium heater

Filter Media:     Juwel Compact Filters, 1 x Fine Blue, 1 x Cirax, 1 x Course Blue, 1 x Green, 1 x Black, 1 x White

Airpump:           Superfish Air-Flow Mini - Output 78 L/H

Thermometer:   Digital and LED Thermometers

Plants:               25 various plants

Grave:               20kg Medium Dorset Pea Gravel

  

After I had all the bits together I attached the filter media into the compatment and then connected the pump. I then filled the tank with roughly 18kg of gravel to the tank, I was not sure what the gravel would look like as some people have said that this kind of medium pea gravel is too big but as it is all i had it was worth using in the meantime.

Once thhe gravel was added I then attached the heater to the inside of the tank, it is roughly 2-3 inches from the bottom at the rear of the tank and still a bit concerned as not fun seeing a 240v electric cable in the water.

I then started filling the tank with water and then added the plants and the air pipe. I found it extremely hard planting the plants, its not an easy task and as you can see from the pics i hade a very poor effort at planting them.

Some people say that the Juwel tanks do not need additional air as its provided through the pump and filter but to be honest cannot see how it can provide air as all its doing is pumping water about. But when it comes down to it, I think air bubbles looks good in a tank, its a good feature to look at, a still tank can be boring, the bubbles adds to the atmosphere.

Once the tank was completely filled with water it looked so weird as soooooooo cloudy, but guess that was just from the gravel.

I turned on the pump/filter and the heater and will leave it for 24 hours to settle.

Day 3 - Saturday 11th December 2010

After leaving the tank for 24 hours filled with water and the pump operating, there was no leaks so was happy with the result.

I emptied the tank again which took a while and changed the position of the tank slightly. I dried the tank and would continue tomorrow.

Day 2 - Friday 10th December 2010

I needed something for the tank to sit on, I had planned on having the tank on a table I had but I discovered it was not strong enough as once you fill it with water and other things it would have collapsed under the weight.

I did not have any other tables or units I could have used so opted to have the tank on the floor as it is a solid concrete floor so strong enough and also no worries that the tank could fall over.

I did not want the tank on the bare floor so using some wood I had i was able to create a small platform and the tank is about 2 inches off the ground now.

I placed 3 x boards on the floor with the top of the table I had planned on using, (I ended up taking it to bits as it was no good for much else), and then created a small covering board around the sides mainly to protect the tank from accidental hits from the likes of vacuum the floor.

 Later on in the evening after the tank was in place, I filled the tank up to check for leaks, I never realised how much water was involved in filling it, it quite surprised me how much 120 litres actually is.

Once the tank was filled I connected up the filter pump to test it, I did not attach any filter media as the main objective was to check for leaks., so just connected up the pump and plugged it into the power and let it operate for 24 hours.

Day 1 - Thursday 9th December 2010

I have had a tank for a while now but it has been in my spare room not doing much except gatthering dust, so decided I may as well put it to use.

I brought it through from the spare room into the living room to check it and also to give it a good clean. I read online that using any detergent is bad so opted to use luke warm water and some sea salt to clean anything that should not be there.

The only bad thing about using the sea salt is once it dried on the glass you can see the salt marks so had to clean it again with just plain water, although there are some marks still, not dirty ones, just fingerprints and water marks.

The tank is:
Make:      Juwel
Model:     Rekord 120
Filter:      Juwel Compact
Volume:   120 Litres
Measurements: 101 cm x 31cm x 46 cm


Information on the tank from Juwel: http://go-link.cz.cc/33fdbf