Africans feeling frisky today…

[Magnum Man]

I had posted before on my African 3 lined glass cats acting strangely… last night, while running new air lines , I think I figured out why… turns out, that tank has one of the heaters I hate that don’t have a hole to hang the controller, and the sticky stuff is never good enough to hold them up, and I’ve had several fall off, and end up submerged… this one was stuck on the wall, when it fell, beside the tank, and naturally draped there numbers towards the wall… last night, I noticed, it had come unplugged… not sure how long it had been like that, but when I plugged it in, the tank was as 70 degrees… by this morning, it was 76 degrees, and normal temperature tonight, today the cats look normal, and the tetras look frisky… heater gets changed out, with one that has a positive hang hole, and since the controller didn’t fall in the tank, and it still works… it’ll be put in my back up heaters ( note to self… pay attention to those cats )

 

[GaryE]

So the cats like 70f, and the tetras 76. Why don't you aim for 74f? I've been surprised at how happy my Congo Cichlids have been at that range, They're too young to breed, but they are showing pre-breeding behaviour. I kept my Congo tetras at 23c, which tells me is 23.4f. My B. greeni are at that, and they are fine. I'd raise it to breed them, but for maintenance, they are active and happy seeming.

 

[Magnum Man]

I could revisit some of the specific temperatures… using “F” temperatures, instead of “C” temperatures complicates a lot of things, old habits, most fish info being global is in “C” temperatures… I’m sure my digital heaters can switch back and forth… most of my “tropical”tanks are set at 78 - 79 degrees, and my cooler tanks, set at room temperature ( ish ), and the heaters don’t run during the summer months, but heaters hold them at 71 - 72 degrees during the winter months…

This hobby may push this old curmudgeon, closer to the metric system, after I retire, and may want to start breeding a few…

I find aquarium sizing more challenging than the temperature conventions…
Fish length on sites like Seriously Fish, I am able to get close enough for me, just thinking a cm is about a half inch…

 

[GaryE]

What I do when I want to speak American is I hit google, type whatever cm to inches, or whatever celsius to Fahrenheit. I think the site has a conversion tool too, but I use google.
My brain is not good with numbers, so I tend not to retain fahrenheit. We switched when I was in my teens, and miles, f, and such are easy to forget. We still measure height in feet and inches, and body weight in pounds. Somehow, being 6"3, 215 sounds better than 190 and 97. The Brits have "stones" which I think is a deliberate strategy to keep their body weights unknowable to the rest of the world.