Pets at Home fish points. Any fish experts??

[ShellsandSand]

Last week I bought a 24 litre fish tank with filter from our local P@H.
I spoke with the adviser who said they worked with a fish point system and that the tank was a '12 point tank' effectively allowing us to have 6 platys at 2 points each or 12 zebra danios or a mix of the 2 ie. 6 zebras and 3 platys. Anyway I took it up with the bits and bobs and set it up for a fishless cycle. 24 hours later j go back with a water sample that tested perfect apparently and they let me choose the fish. My daughters chose a platy each and we went on our way with intent to return and buy more. However i am now reading online that a 24l tank is basically too small for anything but cherry shrimp or snails. So my question is. Does anyone know if our 2 platys can live happily in a 24l tank? And should we absolutely not get anymore platys or a small school of danios? I feel totally misadvised by P@H and do not want to keep fish under cruel conditions.

The bigger problem is the fact you’ve been told to put fish in 24 hours later.
Unless it’s heavily planted up with live plants, it won’t be cycled and in a few weeks your fish will become very ill and quite likely die.

Re tank size.
You have been misadvised, it’s only really suitable for shrimp or micro fish like chilli rasbora or celestial pearl danios.
No way is it big enough for platys or danios!

Also, I’m fairly sure platies are livebearers?
If you’ve got a female in that pair you are going to be absolutely swamped with baby fish...

Thank you Dogs both male I believe but your advice confirms what I've seen over and over on various fish forums. I wish id have had the good sense to research before I went into P@H so the responsibility lays with me. A bigger tank it is. Do you think the 2 platys will be OK in the 24l until I correctly cycle a new tank?

When you go back to Pets at Home get them to give you some used filter sponge from one of their fish tanks....it should be brownish, mucky and fish poo soiled.
Also if you don’t have it buy water conditioner and a heater.

When you get home (the good bacteria on/in the fish poo sponge will survive maybe four hours tops so don’t hang around), fill the new tank with water treated with the water conditioner then add the fish poo sponge to your filter alongside the other sponge(s).

As long as you don’t add any other fish they should be fine and you won’t get the ammonia and nitrite spike that occurs during cycling because the good bacteria will be growing from the sponge from the pet shop. Never replace all the sponge at once and never wash it in tap water. Wash it in water taken from the tank during a water change.

Depending on the new size tank (google how many platys you can keep but as mentioned they are livebearers) you can add them slowly three or four weeks later.

You won’t need to wash the sponges in tank water for a month or two though.

Google a lot on new tanks and best of luck.