quarrelsome platies

[tamara]

Well, my husband brought home six different types of platies and they're all in our 72-gallon community tank. We have 5 males and 6 females. The problem is some of the males can't seem to get along together. The black one and the yellowish one are often going at it, and the Mickey Mouse and the high-fin are also sworn enemies. They chase each other and nip at the sides. We have one other male who so far has avoided conflict.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Do you think it's because of all the different colors? Or do we have too many males per females? Is there a likelihood they will work things out and reach an understanding or are we stuck with bickering?

We have previously kept a similar size group of platies in this tank that all got along fine, but they were all of the same type and we had fewer males.

[parker002]

You need more females.

Livebearers are sex addicts - if you put enough females in there, the males will be too distracted to fight.

[parker002]

Oh, and be prepared for the inevitable population EXPLOSION.

[tamara]

Thanks, Parker! That was my husband's theory as well. We didn't realize we had so many males until we got them all home. In the past we always had few males and once we had no males at all so this really caught us off guard!

[Suzie Q (Lori)]

To help with the population explosion, put something in the tank that is big enough to eat the fry, but not so big that it will bother the platties. I've used female bettas for mine

[tamara]

Thanks for the suggestion, Suzie Q!