# Advice



## Kimmpf (Sep 23, 2009)

Hi all, 
I have a small 36l tank and a 125l tank for my tropical fish. At the moment the small one is only being used for the babies from my big platys and all my other fish are in the big tank. 5 of the fish I have were given to me by my friend when their fish had babies. One of them has grown bigger than the rest and he follows one of the female fish around all the time and if any of the others come near her he chases them away - why is this? Is he being protective over her or acting as a bully? I have attached some pictures of him and also of my algae eater - can anyone tell me what type he is or their name? Thanks in advance.


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## Kimmpf (Sep 23, 2009)

Thank you for your help on this thread and my other one, she is the only black and white female molly I have but I also have a female molly the same colour as him, along with my platys. This may sound like a silly question but do platys and mollies look similar? I wasnt sure whether he was a platy or a mollie until you told me


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## CanIgoHome (Oct 25, 2008)

the plec is a golden bristlenose grows no bigger then 6inchs and the sailfin mollies males follow all female livebearer around the tank all day long my endlers do and I have 2 males to 8 females but I have 4 males to 1 female platy (poor girl the boys do not leave her alone)

all livebearer babies look the same as fry till the color starts to come out 

By the way the mollies look great and the bristlenose is female too


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## PoisonGirl (Oct 24, 2008)

Youre meant to have more females than males to stop them getting stressed and dying.
I have 2 male and 5 female platy and they dont get chased.

Great id on the pleco too  Bristlenose are nice but I can't seem to get them here! 

x


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## CanIgoHome (Oct 25, 2008)

I know but I can't find a platy in my LFS's I like or look healthy at the mo:frown2::mad2:


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## PoisonGirl (Oct 24, 2008)

That sucks 
I don't have a lfs as such but my local pet shop are quite good with the fish section and he will order me in what I need.

x


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## fishy5 (May 4, 2009)

Sorry to be ignorant but what does lfs stand for,is it local fish store?


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## Kimmpf (Sep 23, 2009)

Thanks everyone for your help. I will take some more pictures to post up of them all and I will also count how many I have of each sex as I am not sure-some I have brought and some I have had given to me by our friends who had too many babies for their tank. Now I'm the one with all the baby fish - I found more in my tank yesterday morning!! Am I right in saying the fish must be happy to be breeding so much?


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## Corporate Gifts (Nov 16, 2009)

A stickleback may be hard to find, let alone keep alive. One of the secrets to keeping a setup of a mini ecosystem is that all the organisms need to be small, otherwise the system can't process their wastes and they die from poisoning themselves. A plant and bacteria will help to remove wastes, but you have to have the system be fairly large and set up for months before it can run without any help from you.

That's probably why you see guppies suggested. They're small, and don't need to have heated water like other tropical fish. As long as the water temperature is above 65o, they're happy. But guppies can sometimes be hard to keep. One thing I've found is that you have to look around to find healthy ones to begin with (don't buy any fish at WalMart!), and it helps to add a little salt to their water - about 1/2 teaspoon per gallon. Don't use table salt, because it's got iodine, but use kosher, canning, pickling, or rock salt instead.

If you can use a heater in the tank, I'd put in a female betta, but these need to have water that's 70o or more. And try to make the ecosystem as big as you can. If you're limited on space, make as much of it as you can be water for the fish.


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