FishProfiles.com Message Forums

Those who have been following my posts recently will know about the Arulius Barb fiasco that was my first attempt to find some playmates for my SAEs. Well, the problem is now solved for the duration. I decided to rescue some Platies from a dealer tank containing some really icky water.

Given that I didn't want any of that junk in there, I took time making sure that the water was slowly removed and replaced with proper, clean water (after temperature acclimatisation, I went to the trouble of mixing up a batch of new water with some Tetra AquaSafe and temperature matching it to the aquarium specifically for the purpose). This was tedious, but it's been worth it. The Platies are now happily settled in, and appear to be more than a little surprised to find themselves not only occupying a tank containing a working filter, but one containing decor into the bargain! You can almost see the expressions on their faces .... "We've got plants!" ... "What's this stuff? Bogwood!" ... "And we've got natural gravel!"

Now, these are definitely standard Platies, as in Xiphophorus maculatus, as opposed to Variatus Platies (Xiphophorus variatus), which have a more elongate body shape anyway, but they have a very interesting colour scheme (photos will be provided if I can persuade them to stand still long enough!). They have bright red colour on the caudal peduncle, with red tails, the colour extends slightly along the ventral side of the fish to the anal fin, and the females have red anal fins too. The base colour is a sort of lemon yellow, but with a sort of pastel lustre to it, but the fishes exhibit an interesting green iridescence along the upper third of the body, starting from behind the operculum and extending back beneath the dorsal fin, but not quite meeting up with the red at the caudal peduncle. The green iridescence is best seen when looking at the fish from above at about a 30 degree angle, and to be honest, I've never seen Platies with shimmering green iridescence before, so I'm glad I rescued these fish! Oh, and they also have red dorsal fins.

There's six of them in the aquarium - 2 males and 4 females - and they're encouraging the SAEs to come out nicely. As I type this, the SAE's are frolicking about fine style, and this doesn't faze the Platies one bit, despite the fact that the SAE's are juggernauts!

Oh, and feeding time is fun to watch. They're enthusiastic feeders to put it mildly! I gather they're not used to being fed quality fish food, and consequently, they're already starting to put on quite a sparkle despite having been in a dealer aquarium that was, quite frankly, appalling to behold. If I'd had room in my own aquarium to rescue all the Platies in there, I'd have done so, but hopefully, my removing six fish from that tank has made conditions slightly less oppressive pollution wise for the ones I left behind.

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

After a bit of a struggle, I caught the Platies on camera!

The green colour that appears shows up well in these shots, but thanks to the flash I used, some of the shots show the Platies exhibiting a blue colour that is never seen with the naked eye ... curiouser and curiouser!

This one shows two of my Platies shortly after feeding, in a dark corner of the aquarium next to the bogwood "tower" ...

Attached Image:


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

In this photo, I caught four of them together ... the green colour I mentioned in the first post shows up on some of them, but once again, one of them shows blue that never appears during naked eye viewing, again due to the flash:

Attached Image:


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Stop press - photo that probably shows the green colouration as closely as it appears to the naked eye as I'll succeed in achieving at the moment, given that the camera seems to generate spurious blue colours with the flashgun if I shoot at the wrong angle ... ignore the speckles on the photo, this is something that's a documented problem with earlier Fuji cameras using the SuperCCD chips:

Attached Image:


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

UPDATE ...

My Platies have had babies!

40 of them, no less. Pictures will follow in due course.

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002