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Can platy's be kept in a cold water tank with goldfish?
My friend has a very large tank set up with only two shubunkins. She didn't want to add any more goldfish but the tank looked empty. She looked a white cloud minnows but her goldies are too large and would eat the poor mites up.
Alongside the coldwater tanks was a tank full of various platy's. She was advised that they would be better suited to her goldfish as they were faster swimming and wouldn't fit in their mouths. She has had them four four months and they are doing brilliantly and are very pretty indeed!
I wondered though if she's been given the correct advise as I can only find temp advise from 24 deg upwards. I know her house is warm and the temp would have been higher in the summer months, but now I am thinking that now the temps are dropping her tank will do too - and whether a heater would be advisable to keep the tank at a constant temp.
She has a tropical tank they could in effect, be moved to but doesn't want to if she can help it.
Thank you in advance!
(and of course I can see my bad English when I reread this - I should've put advice and not advise LOL).
3 Answers
- bazil323Lv 41 decade agoFavorite Answer
Platys are tropical fish, and while they may be able to survive in colder water for a time, long-term they will be unhealthy and die much sooner than they should.
A better way to solve the tank situation is to fill it up with plants and decor, leaving enough space for the fish to swim freely. The goldfish will thank her! Once the shubunkins get a little bigger, they will surely 'fill up' that empty space.
Another choice is to get rosy red minnows. They are often used as 'dither fish' in goldfish and koi ponds. They are also a coldwater fish that will thrive in the same temps that shubunkins like. As long as she gets a group of them (at least 8) and has plenty of spaces to hide, the shubunkins shouldn't eat them. Same goes for the White Clouds, actually. The minnows are much faster than the goldies, and with places to hide, they should be able to get away just fine.
Source(s): http://www.fishpondinfo.com/rosies.htm - 1 decade ago
I think it was bad advice for a pet store to tell her that she could put tropical fish in with cold water fish. As you said, they may have done well in the summer when the weather made the indoor temperature hotter but as it gets colder outside, it will indoors as well. A heater would be a bad idea for the shubunkin. I really think the only choice she has is to put the platy's in her tropial fish tank or else she may start seeing some of them die.
