Tank temperature

[danielratti]

I was wondering what others keep there tank temp at? I have all make tanks around 77 but I hear that some people are keeping around 75. I didn't think the fish really liked it being that low.

[jcunningham0295]

Mine are around 77 to 78.

[Steve]

I have Lifeguard dig thermometers on all mine which I find to be very accurate and they are reading the following right now...

55g Peacock tank - 79.4F
55g Mbuna tank - 79.5 F (although right now I bumped it up to 81F because of the bloat issue with a fish so tryin to get it's metabolism kicked up a notch)
10g Beta/Cory cat tank - 81.2F

[Stan M.]

mind are around 79 ish

[Michael Zebrowski]

Mine are kept at 75-ish for maintenance/grow-out and 80-ish for breeding, except for the pair of Xingu I Orange pikes which are kept at 86-88f.

[danielratti]

Yeah I am starting to think that might be why my electric bill jumped up so high. I am running 4 150 watt heaters and a air pump that is 80 watts. I hooked up a wattage tester to everything today and go a reading of 356 to 90 on 5 tanks and that is with them reading 78.2 on lifeguard heaters just like the ones you have Steve. I was thinking about dropping the tanks with fry growing out to 75 but didn't know if that would be to iffy or not with them.

But I don't think that is why my bill was so high. The two pumps I was running before for sponges were actually a lot more than the 80 watt one they were older ones like from the 80's.

[Ron]

Depending on what thermometer I use, anywhere from 74F-80F. I should invest in an accurate one someday.

Taking temperature by committee, AKA using a few and seeing which result is most common, mine are 75F-78F. I keep my fishroom sealed up as best I can and run heaters in the lower tanks and any tank with special temperature requirements. Those combined with occasional heat from the dehumidifier and whatever heat is realized from the furnace vent keeps all of the tanks at least at 75F, if not higher.

I do think that I get slightly slower fry growth rates from the cooler temperature tanks. This is based on comparison of tanks sitting side by side, one with a heater (~78F), one without (~76F), and fry in both from the same batch. I'm not trying to make money breeding, it's only a slight difference, and I haven't seen any health side effects, so I'm not too concerned about it.

[danielratti]

Thats what I figured was that it doesn't hurt the heath of the fish so yeah. Where Mine is I cannot really seal it off too much but  it is possible for me to. I know acrylic holds heat better then glass so I might do acrylic tops as well to see if that helps. One thing I noticed as well this evening was I wanted to see if it was maybe the dehumidifier pulling a lot of watts and it was pulling 268 to 300 in a 10 min time frame. Energy efficient yeah right.

[Steve]

Just as a side note about heat in tanks that I found really amazing. And I'm sure you guys already know this but since I'm not as experienced with fish keeping as most here are, so as a newbie this just blew my mind. I set up that 20g hospital tank last week when I was tryin to save my Mbamba and I went out and bought a 100w heater to put in it next to the Penguin 350 filter. At first I didn't have the glass lid on the tank and no matter what I did with the heater it would not get the tank over 71F even with the heater cranked all the way up as high as it would go. Couple days later I found the glass lid I got from Rich at the November auction so I put that on there, the temp shot up to 80F and stays there now.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised but I was just shocked that it made that much of a difference just having the top on there.

[danielratti]

You would be surprised at how many people do not realize that actually Steve. It is the process of evaporative cooling as there is a air source passing over the top of the tank it will cause the water to cool by evaporating out of the tank. if you put a tight fitting top on it will cause even more heat to be trapped in the tank.