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Hi there again ^^. My mum wants me to get some "pretty fish", and by that she means something brightly colored so my instant thought was live bearers in particular platies, sword tails, mollies etc. I thought of livebearers as I dont want a schooling fish but something that gets to a reasonable body size and bright coloured. Though if there are any other fish people can think of sugesting that would suit the tank would be great ^^.

In my tank I have, 2 Angel fish, 2 Keholes, 2 Rams, 1 Butterfly fish (just got him yey ^^), 1 gold gourami, 1 Syno, 1 dojo loach, 7 danio, 8 corys and 1 BN plec. The tank is a 65 gallon long tank with just above 10x filtration.

She really likes sunset platies but I think that the platies might be a bit small and slow compared to the rest of my fish to be to get a chance to feed? Am I right?

I am prepared for the babies as I have a friend that keeps masses of live bearers, and *fingers crossed* she will take the babies, she grows them for about 3 weeks and gives them to an LFS.

I know there are quite a few types of morphs of live bearers are there any that would suit my tank and fit the demands of my mum lol?

thanks Andy,
P.S I dont want guppies or endlers because they are to small ^^.

Platys would fit in fine in your tank, but you're pretty fully stocked - at least when the fish are adults. How big are they right now? If most are younger, I'd say get 1 male and 3 female platys or swordtails. You won't have to give any fry away...they'll be eaten for sure by the angels, keyholes or the butterfly fish (I love those guys, too). I wouldn't do mollies - IMHO they do better in very hard high pH water or in light brackish water.

I'm surprised your mom wants more color in there...seems like you have some colorful fish to me.

Eric

That was my impression, too, BigE... there's already some pretty colorful fish in there. And if rams aren't pretty, I don't know what she wants.

However, livebearers do seem to be of a pretty personable nature... I especially like mollies for their antics.

You could always get strictly MALE livebearers and not worry about population explosion, though like BigE said, with your current stocking, you probably wouldn't have to worry about fry very much... I'm sure most of them would turn into appetizers for the rest of your fish.

Sounds like you're pretty stocked, but I haven't calculated it all up... I'd go and figure out what sort of stocking level you're at (get the adult sizes of all your fish and add it up), then make your decision from there.

~Meow. Thus spoke the cat.~

And if rams aren't pretty, I don't know what she wants.

<---thats what I said lol! I love my fish and how they look in my tank its just parentel presure over fish of all things lol!

I agree that the tank is on a heavy load, the fish range in age are very varied, the BN plec is the oldest at about 7 months and then the angels and gourami have been in the tank for about 4 months and they were babies when I got them. Then the butterfly fish came home on saturday the rest range between there, but I would say they are mostly still juvilines the syno has its juvi markings.

The syno is probably going to be rehomed eventualy and also the gourami and danio are going into a 29 asian biotope ^^ when my GF gets her tank in a year to year and a half with dwarf chains. So I think this co insides well with the adult fish coming of age and getting to their full potential? Am I right? never been to sure how fast fish grow, i assumed over the course of a year or two?

thanks for the replies