Platy or swordtail; stkg. Poeciliids in sm. vol..s      8/26/13
Hi there,
<Hello,>
I spent a long time reading and can't find answers to the following questions. I have a 70 litre tank and 2 X 20 litre tanks but only a heater for the 70 litre
<18 US gallons, i.e., not a lot of water, so stock carefully.>
and one of the 20 litres.
<5 US gal., barely suitable for fishkeeping at all; at most, either a male Betta, some Dwarf Aquatic Frogs or a shrimp aquarium.>
I have only had my aquariums about 3 months.
<Stock slowly, and read carefully!>
I went away on holiday and used the 5 day feeder gel formula food and came back and all fish were well.
<Good. Just for the future, if you're going away for a week or less, feeding isn't necessary, and in most cases, properly fed fish are fine for two weeks without food. Safer than adding holiday food. Why? Because if something goes wrong, like the filter stops or gets blocked and slows down, there's less waste to pollute the tank.>
After being home a couple if days I did a 30-50% water change and then next day I saw a baby fish and realised ketchup my red platy was a lot thinner.
I also have a fat pregnant swordtail female in the same tank(Tiger).  Over the next week I collected 6 more babies from the stones and plants.  The first fish is slightly larger and plain and the others are all striped like the swordtail mother.
<I see.>
Do you think the plain one that is much bigger could be the lone survivor from the platys litter (or what ever you call a brood in fish) and the striped ones are swordtails like their striped mother?
<Possibly, but hard to say. Livebearers of all kinds can delay the development of fertilised eggs, which means that a female can produce fry anything up to 6 months after mating with a particular male. That means the father of your baby fish could have been one of the fish in the pet store.
Hence fish breeders who want particular sorts of offspring use virgin females, i.e., they take some female fry when only a few weeks old, isolate them, and only put them back with a specific male as/when they want to breed from them.>
I also wonder if my swordtail is still pregnant as I haven't found any more fry for a few days but she still looks pregnant.
<Possible, but again, be open minded. Ensure diet is adequate (these fish are largely herbivores, so need a greens-based diet, e.g., Spirulina flake) otherwise constipation is common. Water fleas (Daphnia) are a good laxative. Also be aware of what Dropsy looks like, and keep an eye open for it. It's a common problem when fish aren't kept perfectly well.>
I also just want to mention tiger the swordtail female started off being really bossy and aggressive with everything else in the tank and my first swordtail male hid from her and eventually died.
<Swordtails are aggressive, and your tank is too small for them. Bear in mind Swordtails are fast fish from flowing water habitats, and they can get to around 8 cm/3 inches in length, sometimes even more. I'd keep them in tanks not less than 70, 80 cm long, so realistically, tanks in the 110 l/30 gallon size range upwards. In smaller tanks aggressive fish will often
whittle their population down to a manageable size, and that may well be what you're seeing here.>
I since replaced with a new one who can just barely cope with her. I know this ratio of 1 male to 1 female is not normal but it seems right for her. 
What do you think?
<See above; Swordtails are aggressive and chase each other a lot. Keep two females per male, in a suitably sized tank, and either one male or three, never two because that number seems to end up with one bullying the other.
To be honest, in small tanks Platies are better bets.>
I got a lyre tail molly female to be boss and she started off hiding from tiger.
<Mollies definitely do not belong here!
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/fwsubwebindex/mollies.htm
Do read up on these difficult fish.>
I had to replant and move everything around to give all new territories play and this helped them to fit in better and now the 2 play and thankfully mainly leave the smaller fish alone. I must say I don't like the idea of having just one lyre tail molly but think this is working for the individual fish involved. 
<Mollies don't get lonely.>
I think I might sell 6-7guppies and just keep the named male (Albie).  He doesn't seem to Fin nip like the others do but would I have an issue with having 1 male guppy without a female or 2 to hassle in with the other fish?
<Stop. Your tank is already VERY overcrowded.>
The guppies are brothers and sisters so  I don't want these particular girls as I don't want to inbreed them any more as I got them from someone who has inbred them heaps.  I would want a new gene pool even though they are very pretty.
8 neon tetras
2 female platys
1 male platy
1 female swordtail
1 male swordtail
1 female lyre tail molly
2 peppered Corydoras
1 bronze Corydoras
2 Bristlenose catfish
7-8 nearly grown Guppies including named male
Thank you so much for your help
Angie
<Do read:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/fwsubwebindex/poeciliids.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_5/volume_5_3/stocking.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/FWSubWebIndex/fwlivestk.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/fwsubwebindex/fwset-up.htm
And follow the links. You have a very small tank overstocked with fish with different water chemistry requirements (e.g., Neons need soft/acid while Mollies and need hard/alkaline and possibly even brackish). Some of these fish are quite hardy (e.g., Corydoras) but others are notoriously difficult for beginners to keep successfully (Neons, Mollies). Cheers, Neale.>
Re: Platy or swordtail     8/26/13
Hi Neal
<Angie,>
Thank you for your advice.  The only thing that I can't really understand is whether one guppy is okay in the communal tank rather than the current 6-8 or whether I need to keep a female to keep him happy?
<Guppies are fine on their own when kept with appropriate tankmates. Adding females (plural) per male Guppy is of course doable, but not necessary, and males harass the females in small tanks.>
The 20 litre tanks are 1. for raising babies and 2. for breeding food for my tank i.e. brine shrimp or Daphne.
<I see.>
What is Dropsy? Is there a link about it?
<It's a symptom rather than a disease. Fluid retention inside the body.
Indicates all sorts of different things, but typically bacterial infections and/or organ failure. Difficult to treat unless caught early. Very characteristic of Dropsy is the "pine cone" effect seen from above, as the scales of body stick outwards. Do start here:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/fwsubwebindex/dropsyfaqs.htm
>
Take care
Angie
<Will do, Neale.>

Xiphophorus; reproduction, stocking     6/4/12
Good evening! We have a 15 gallon tank with the following inhabitants: 4 zebra danios, 3 blue fin guppies, 4 White Mickey Platy's (2 male, 2 female), 3 Sunburst Wags (1 female and 2 males), and a small catfish.
<What kind of catfish? A Corydoras? They are social fish -- get a couple more, at least. Your tank is already pretty well stocked though (and I'd argue the Danios are too active and big for it anyway) so you will need to focus on water quality.>
Our sunburst wag, Momma, gave birth about 3 weeks ago; we were able to recover twelve of the babies; currently in a 10 gallon tank and thriving.
<Good.>
Today, we saw at least 2 new babies in the original tank! We're pretty sure they're Momma's babies because she's been behaving like she did a few weeks ago.
<Any/all of the females will be pregnant since you've added males, so I'd be open minded about who's the mother.>
She seems so stressed out right now from giving birth so soon. Can we put Momma into the other tank, with the original fry?
<If you want, for a while. But 10 gallons is too small for adult Platies.>
Also...is there a way of avoiding breeding, by say...having all females or all males of a particular species?
<For sure. Keep virgin females and you'll be fine. After mating though the females may produce more than one batch of fry, so just removing the males today may mean it'll take many months before the females are "empty" of fry.>
Thank you so much, Bryan and Kimberly
<Cheers, Neale.>