Cannot plot candlestick data from Huobi json data - json

Question

import pandas as pd
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.ticker as mticker
from matplotlib.finance import candlestick_ohlc
import matplotlib.dates as mdates
import datetime as dt
import urllib
import json
from urllib.request import urlopen
import datetime as dt
import requests
dataLink ='http://api.huobi.com/staticmarket/btc_kline_015_json.js'
r = requests.get(dataLink) # r is a response object.
quotes = pd.DataFrame.from_records(r.json()) # fetches dataset
quotes[0] = pd.to_datetime(quotes[0].str[:-3], format='%Y%m%d%H%M%S')
#Naming columns
quotes.columns = ["Date","Open","High",'Low',"Close", "Vol"]
#Converting dates column to float values
quotes['Date'] = quotes['Date'].map(mdates.date2num)
#Making plot
fig = plt.figure()
fig.autofmt_xdate()
ax1 = plt.subplot2grid((6,1), (0,0), rowspan=6, colspan=1)
#Converts raw mdate numbers to dates
ax1.xaxis_date()
plt.xlabel("Date")
print(quotes)
#Making candlestick plot
candlestick_ohlc, (ax1,quotes.values,width=1,colorup='g',colordown='k',
alpha=0.75)
plt.show()
I'm trying to plot a candlestick chart from json data provided by Huobi but I can't sort the dates out & the plot looks horrible. Can you explain in fairly simple terms that a novice might understand what I am doing wrong please? This is my code ....
Thx, in advance`

Answer 1

You can put the fig.autofmt_xdate() at some point after calling the candlestick function; this will make the dates look nicer.
Concerning the plot itself, you may decide to make the bars a bit smaller, width=0.01, such that they won't overlap.
You may then also decide to zoom in a bit, to actually see what's going on in the chart, either interactively, or programmatically,
ax1.set_xlim(dt.datetime(2017,04,17,8),dt.datetime(2017,04,18,0))

Answer 2

This boiled down to a question of how wide to make the candlesticks given the granularity of the data as determined by the period & length parameters of the json feed. You just have to fiddle around with the width parameter in candlestick_ohlc() until the graph looks right...