Hey Everyone! I was wondering if anyone has had any experience housing a platy, swordtail, or molly colony with central american cichlids? I'm looking for advice, tips, to do's, and just a general can it work. I am looking at some marigold variatus platy to start a colony in both my bigger tanks. I figure it would be kind of a biotype tank with the fish I have and it would hopefully be a nice constant live food source. In addition I like the visual of extra color to add to the tank and complimant the cichlids. If you have pics or movies of your tank with a platy colony or just general advice, it is all appreciated.
Centrals with Platys
- Thread starter Batboi3000
- Start date
I tried to put some mollies in with a salvini(5") and a couple of firemouths(4") and they all ended up disappearing within days. You might have better luck, but I think they will probably just end up as food.
I dunno... Look at the fish in my signature. I have two salvini that are both like 5" and 6" if not closer to 7". The rest of my fish are also between 5-7" I have thought of doing a bunch of black mollies too. I'm trying to get permission from my wife to set up a 20 gallon long and breed them in that and at least keep a steady population going. We'll see how that goes. Thanks for the feedback. Anyone else?
Check out any threads by a guy here named Nutty. He has some big Viejas as well as thoryctis species in a huge tank with a bunch of platies and such...
I do have some experience with platy..... and i currently keep some CA cichlids (Jack Dempsey, Convict) and I personally know that these two will not tolerate platy (long story) It could work if you had A LOT of platy and some small cichlids, the smallest Central American ones I can think of are the Black convict and the Fire Mouth, If you wanted to get into some South Americans, I know that the Severum cichlid (any type) are generally docile and if you bought them fairly small after the platy were there it would probably work.
I done it, texas cichlid, parrot cichlid, flowerhorn grow out, with snakeskin gourami's. rainbowfish and mollies, works absolutely great! just keep an eye on the cichlids and get either peacefull ones like severums or get smaller cichlids like firemouths etc 
i am trying this same thing with my 55 grow out tank.has 15 2inch and under synspilium,with 5 red platies.i never see any babies.i think my plan to have the constant live food is working.the platies don't look beat up.i am hoping to be able to add more platies when i move the group of synspiliums to a larger tank.i would think the smaller you start with the cichlid they could get used to them,but once the size difference increases all bets are off
Does it have to be platys, swordtails, or mollys? why not silver dollars? or tiger barbs(Large Colony?).
I made a thread on this a while back where Nutty responded in the thread. I'm too lazy to find it right now. 
