Tanks too hot?

[Jaide]

Interesting article posted by FNZAS on FB:

http://www.seriouslyfish.com/whaddaya-mean-too-hot/

I was running one of my tanks "too cold" as the thermometer was giving an inaccurate reading. So instead of 25 as I thought, it was closer to 21. But my fish seemed fine, and this was for quite a few months.

Thoughts? :spop:

[livingart]

interesting article and agree with a lot of it

[Ira]

Interesting article posted by FNZAS on FB:

http://www.seriouslyfish.com/whaddaya-mean-too-hot/

I was running one of my tanks "too cold" as the thermometer was giving an inaccurate reading. So instead of 25 as I thought, it was closer to 21. But my fish seemed fine, and this was for quite a few months.

Thoughts? :spop:

I've had tropicals running at temps dropping to 16 and lower with no problems. Probably not ideal, but survivable.

[disgustipated]

i agree with this article. i only use my heater in winter. but i think it depends on what type of fish you own. as i have americans they are very hardy and i have never had issues with PH swings let alone temperature.

19 degrees is fine for most tropical fish.

[F15hguy]

:iag:

good to see it put into words...

but then again my coldwater tanks in the garage dropped to 10 degrees last winter, so i'll keep my heater on.

I find I have more trouble with heaters sticking on and cooking.

[David R]

Dangerous advice, IMO. While many species will tolerate or "do ok" in cooler water, many won't and it increases the chance of certain diseases. Clown Loaches and whitespot is a great example, I'd never keep CLs under about 27-8C, same goes for other equatorial species like Uaru that come from warm water areas and are susceptible to such things.

Looking at a world map it's not hard to see that fish all lumped under the "tropical" term span a vast range of latitudes, extending well beyond the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Even if other factors like altitude, rainfall, shade/cover etc are ignored, it is pretty obvious that there will be an equally large spectrum of temperatures encountered by fish living within this zone. Some species (eg Gymnogeophagus) that come from further north or south of the equator will encounter a fairly large variation in temperatures (G. balzanii, the only species we get here, can experience temps as low as 15C in winter and close to 30C in summer), while species closer to the equator will experience far less fluctuation in temp and therefor may be less tolerant of extremes above and below what they are suited to. I believe temperature is actually more important to species than most other water conditions [provided the extremes of either are avoided], and I'd be more inclined to mix fish from different water conditions than different temperatures. IME CLs certainly don't do as well at lower temperatures, and I attribute my poor success with G. balzanii to constantly keeping the species at higher temperatures and not giving them a winter 'cool down' period, as is often suggested. The hardest part of all this (IMO) is getting accurate info about what sort of temperature fish encounter in their natural environment. Obviously it isn't as simple as looking at a map (eg, some Corydoras come from the equatorial zone but live in smaller shaded or high-altitude streams and therefor don't encounter [or tolerate] the high temps of other lowland Amazon Basin species from similar latitudes) but doing so should give you some idea of the kind of temps a fish is better suited to. How far outside of their natural range a fish will thrive/tolerate/survive is anyone's guess really, and blanked advice that we're keeping our fish too hot should be taken cautiously, IMO.

[SamH]

Last time I forgot to plug my heater in, all my fish were laying on the bottom almost motionless. Never have I had fish happy in a tank without a heater no matter what time of year it is. They create these products for a reason ya know :roll:

[Jaide]

Last time I forgot to plug my heater in, all my fish were laying on the bottom almost motionless. Never have I had fish happy in a tank without a heater no matter what time of year it is. They create these products for a reason ya know :roll:

What time of year was it when the fish were laying at the bottom of the tank - Summer or Winter? The author of the article didn't say to never heat the tanks, but that perhaps we make them too hot for the conditions that are naturally suited too.

As david pointed out - it can't be taken as blanket advice for all tropical fish. Some fish are used to warmer climates than others so know your fish to know what temps they prefer. But it seems that we tend to give them a blanket temp when in our tanks regardless.

[SamH]

I've forgotten in both Winter and Summer, neither of which the fish enjoyed. Personally, I'm keeping my heaters

[David R]

I've often wondered why peope turn heaters off over summer, if its warm enough then they're not going to be on anyway, so turning them off is saving zero electricity and removing the safety net in case the air temp drops cooler than expected.

[SamH]

I've often wondered why peope turn heaters off over summer, if its warm enough then they're not going to be on anyway, so turning them off is saving zero electricity and removing the safety net in case the air temp drops cooler than expected.

This. I guess some people don't understand how thermostats work? :-?

[camtang]

Power still draws if its plugged in, just like other electircal stuff. Most of my tanks have 2 heaters in them, I unplug one over summer and plus it back in mid Aprilish

[blueether]

Power still draws if its plugged in, just like other electircal stuff. Most of my tanks have 2 heaters in them, I unplug one over summer and plus it back in mid Aprilish

How do they still draw, the thermostat is just a switch, like a light switch and lights dont use power when not light do they?

[SamH]

It depends, I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) most heater thermostats use a bimetallic strip which works using simple mechanics and no electricity until the strips touch.

[camtang]

I assume it works the same was as my stero, if its on stand by my power meater still has a reading, all be it a very small reading but still a reading. thats why I have taken 2 of the 3 light bulbs out of all my fittings. This way only one can take power

[SamH]

I assume it works the same was as my stero,

Why are you comparing heaters with stereos? :-?

[camtang]

Because they both get plugged into a wall socket and use power to run

[blueether]

and that is where the similarity ends

[camtang]

And it cant take any power if its not pluged in can it ?

[SamH]

And it cant take any power if its not pluged in can it ?

Of course not. It also can't take power if the water is too warm for it to turn on.

[Ira]

Power still draws if its plugged in, just like other electircal stuff. Most of my tanks have 2 heaters in them, I unplug one over summer and plus it back in mid Aprilish

If they do it's fractions of a watt, if that. A few cents a year.

[Warren]

If it's a bimetal type thermostat it will draw no power when the contacts are open - exactly the same as if it was unplugged.

If it's an electronic thermostat then it will draw considerably less power than a stereo in standby while it's monitoring the temperature and not heating. We'd be talking about a few cents a year to pay for it and the power draw will not add more than a few mW of heating to the tank. Actually, lets work it out;

Lets say 10mW usage in the electronic thermostat when not heating.

so, 1W/0.01W = 100 seconds to use 1J of energy (1W = 1J/s)

1kWhr = 1kJ x 60 seconds x 60 minutes = 3600kJ = 3600000J

since it takes 100 seconds to use 1J it takes 3600000 x 100 = 360000000 seconds to use 1kWh of chargeable power.

There are approx 31536000 seconds in a year so the cost is 31536000 / 360000000 = 0.0879 x your kWh charge. Mine is about 20c/kWh so the cost of the heater running all year in standby is about 1.75c so basically nothing.

Hopefully this is about right...

[SamH]

$0.0175 for a bit of health insurance for your (possibly expensive) fish, not bad.

[hovmoller]

Because they both get plugged into a wall socket and use power to run

Wow, this reasoning reminds me of the Monty python bit where the village concludes that a woman is a witch because she weighs the same as a duck, a duck floats, wood also floats, wood can burn so the woman must be a witch.

[camtang]

Well my theory made sense to me, I unplug everything else when its not being used, so in my mind the same should apply to heaters