can bred balloon platy's be fed to axies

I just bought my daughter 4 balloon platy's two male and two female for breeding.. are the babies good for din dins? we have them in a seperate tank to breed and live a happy life. so the quarrantine period will be filled. all four were from the same tank. all the female guppies were in quarrantine.....so we couldnt buy some.

Hmm I personally wouldn't recommend it. Platies need temperatures 22-25C and axolotls need temperatures 14-18 ideally. Also I have heard from friends that platies can be very aggressive and may nip a lot at an axolotl (I thought about them when I was first contemplating feeder fish).

my axie tank is a very happy and stable 20-22 anyways, and im looking at only putting wee babies in, not full grown ones, one of my local fish shops feed them with no probs.... the one where we buy our healthy babies!!

I will have a go and keep an eye out, and if it is fine i will update on this, if it doesnt i will do the same...

thanks for that

malformed platy's do not fit in a "quality of life" topic no matter what you do with them. Breeding these types of deformations as balloon platy's Goldfish with two tials or swolen eyesockets or parrot cichlids that can hardly swim is plain sick in my opinion.

Your tank temperature should be lower, axolotls do better in colder waters and platies do not. That is the main problem. If you've had problems with fungus and the like in the past, you need to cool the tank in my opinion.

Yea, platys are not an ideal food for axies really. If you are determined to use feederfish, why not guppies or something like that?

white cloud mountain minnows are a possibilty, these are small hardy cold water fish, some people use these as feeder fish.

sarah, i have had this argument many times... John has told me what i am doing with my axies regarding temp is perfectly fine as i keep watch on them, please dont go there! I do not have problem with fungus and never had after 2 years at that temp. They are not sluggish nor are they over active ( except at feeding time) It drops down in winter, and if you read the page on caudata.org it does state the ceiling is like 23 deg for temp, when my tanks go there they get measures to cool down.... my tanks do a natural environmental cycle which is inherant i feel to the health and longevity of my axies...

I was asking about the platy's and i dont need a lecture about how breeding them is sick! some people would say breeding axies is sick because they live their life in a tank... to each their own... my family loves the platy's and they are perfectly formed....
I will go out this week to a different trusted shop and find some guppies. so there!

Are they normal sized balloon platies or are they the dwarf type?

I have addressed your comments to me in a PM Casalotl.

Regarding platies:
Bare in mind as well as their preferred temperature being different they are an aggressive fish, so take that into account if you are planning to use them, which I am not sure if you still are? My thoughts about platies is that there is a risk there and I prefer not to take risks when it comes to the health of my axolotl. Better to be safe than sorry.

Guppies are a good idea if you are planning to get those. They are quite hardy with temperature changes, nutritious and not aggressive in my experience. Though using babies or young guppies is best as they get quite large sometimes.

Sarah, responded to pm,

im thinking of baby feeder fish for a like phys ed day, get the axies some excersize for one day a week.. im quite happy feeding them prawns, earthworms, the occasional pellet snack and rarely ,messy bloodworms! I would never EVER put full grown or near full grown feeders in their tank. I know the risks involved there...

becky, they are about the size of a 5 cent piece, they look about half the length of the normal platy's. I will get some guppy's aswell but i do want to try the platy's very young as feeders....
my kids are as axies and fishie enthused as I am now......They may not even procreate for all i know...

Casaloxl said:

becky, they are about the size of a 5 cent piece, ..

Click to expand...

Becky thats the size of 1p coin, not sure if you still have them = been a while since I was in UK.

ok well if they are dwarf platties you may have a job breeding them as the males have been known to be sterile. The joys of inter breeding and so forth.

we will try and see what happens.. if they dont breed thats fine.. they are gorgeous fishies... we were playing with them tonight and they were kissing our fingers...even my 15 yr old son loved playing with them.