# Platy Care Questions(Dwarf Platy to be exact)



## Fishy:) (Apr 10, 2010)

So Ive been looking at the care of platies around the web and some awnsers have been different. This is what I think they should have in their aquarium. Dont know if Im right though:

Temperature:77 F
pH:6-8
Hardness:medium to hard

Also I have a question about the hardness. Right now my tank has soft water. Is this ok for the platys, if not how do I make it harder?

Is it true platys don't like acidic water?


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## hXcChic22 (Dec 26, 2009)

I don't think there is any such thing as a "dwarf" platy. It is most likely a juvenile being passed off as a dwarf. 
Our water is acidic, and our platies are doing well. Generally, most fish can tolerate about 1-1.5 away from neutral, either acidic or basic, and still be ok. 
I also have no idea what type of water hardness we have, but I imagine it's on the hard side.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

IME most livebearers do much better in hard, alkaline water. I moved from a place with hard, alkaline water to one with very soft water and suddenly couldn't seem to keep them alive. They would do fine for awhile, then get sick and die. I started putting my livebearers in my African cichlid water and suddenly they did much better. 

I believe the hardness is more important that the pH. You can harden with "cichlid salts" like I do, but you could also use "Hardness support" products like Equilibrium, or baking soda (sodium carbonate) or even just plain aquarium salt. Salt is chloride ions rather than 'hardness" but it seems to be ions that the fish need, not specific ones. 

Or you could use a 'buffering' substrate like crushed coral or dolomite instead of gravel. 

If you do something to up your hardness, your pH will likely rise as well. 

If you are going to mess with your water chemistry, I suggest you get good water tests. Either a liquid gH, kH, pH test kit or an electronic TDS (total dissolved solids) and pH pen meter. 

Before you do anything, get numbers on your tap water. "soft" and "hard" are kind of meaningless. Get a TDS or gH or kH number and post it. You water may be ok. Platies are pretty tolerant of a decent range. My water is kind of extremely soft, being basically rain water. And how much of anything you add, depends on what your water is like.

You don't want platys with bent spines like balloon mollies, but there are some platys being bred just for small size. I think this was an accident, when you use a seine to remove the largest fish to sell and you leave the smallest to breed, over time you get smaller and smaller fish. I'm reading they are hard to breed, but are otherwise healthy. Also, many platy lineages had been crossed with swordtails to increase the fish's size. Selecting for smaller fish or back crossing to wild type platys could make a smaller fish. The pictures I've seen look like nice fish.


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## snyderguy (Feb 9, 2010)

with my platy fry, i haven't done anything special for them. the water is semi-hard. low carbonate hardness, about 6.8 pH, little nitrates. no nitrites and about 80 degrees. and they are doing great.

i think if you don't do any drastic change then they should be fine with what you have now


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## Fishy:) (Apr 10, 2010)

Ok thank you for all your feed back! Right now my temperature is around 76-77 so that looks good. I am a little worried about the hardness of water but I think its ok. Its weird though, last month it was really really hard and now its dropped down to soft. I do have aquarium salt so maybe Ill add a little more. Oh and the dwarf platies arent hard to breed. When I got them, they gave birth(from the petstore) but the fry died. Anyways thanks guys and any more info would be appreciated


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Something like 1 tsp of salt for 5 gallons or 1/4 tsp of baking soda for 10 gallons is probably all you need. Just remember what you did and be consistent, use the same amount for water change water but don't add anything for water replacing evaporation. 

When water parameters of tap water change suddenly, its likely that your water company switched sources. If that happened once, it could happen again. Test your tap water before doing a big water change (small ones are ok). If the numbers are suddenly way off, you may have to do multiple little changes or add the new water slowly to avoid shocking the fish.


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## narizina (Mar 17, 2010)

I currently have a tank of platies and swords and they are generally happiest with a temperature ranging from 76 - 80 degrees and a little under a tablespoon of aquarium salt for every 5 gallons. If you plan on breeding them at some point, the temperature should be closer to 80.


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