In New Zealand you cannot keep tropical fish without a heater/thermostat. Our outside temperature will be 1 degree C tonight, our indoor temperature will be 14-16 degrees C. My Discus won't survive without the heater/thermostat
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kiko
Fishaholic
I'm pretty sure you yourself don't sleep in 1C...as even in countries like Portugal where i'm from we had oil heaters for the house...unless you keep your fish outside they should be just fine
PS: I live in Canada where temps go well below -20C during winter..doesn't mean my house is kept at those temps
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If your house is at 14 degrees C and your tank needs to be at 28 degrees, you need a heater somewhere.
kiko
Fishaholic
then again...in canada law mandates houses specially if you have tenants to be at a minimum of 21C..i keep mine between 25 and 30C.... and around 20 in summer...
discus bred in south america specially ecuador/colombia grow in 10C temps during night/morning...30+ during daytime...so yeah...28C?!? again...myth's
no such thing as heated ponds in south america...fish are bred at environment temps and starved to save $$ on food
You won't find one person in New Zealand keeping Tropical fish that doesn't have a heater/thermostat in their tank.
kiko
Fishaholic
at 14C you wouldn't find me in a new zealand home either xD
OP
OP
Ich is not everywhere. It isn't magical. It can lie dormant, but not for long. When it didn't attack my fish for 10 years, it wasn't present. Here. it always hit with chilling. It was always a winter problem.
Fish can shed the parasite in large bodies of water, none of which are home aquariums. We always buy stressed fish - getting netted, transported etc, and in winter, generally getting exposed to some cold.
Here's an anecdote. I once went to the airport to pick up a west African fish import, of about 25 large styros. We were worried because the Canadian weather had taken an unexpected turn and a cold snap had hit. The shipper had sent weeks after he was supposed to. The wonderful airline had left the pallets on the runway outdoors at -30 for several hours (the huge 'tropical fish keep warm' stickers had been ignored).
The outside boxes, the exposed ones, were frozen solid, but the boxes inside still had live fish, in icewater. We acclimated them as quickly as we could (net and drop into warm water) and almost all of those fish survived. We watched for ich, and never saw it. In the weeks we QTed those fish to bring them around, not one got ich, even the notorious 'ich magnets' Microctenopoma. Ich wasn't present to take advantage, in either the water of the wild caught fish or in the well maintained importing installation..
You can go online and hit some pdfs that detail the life cycle of ich, and you'll see it isn't present everywhere. You'll also see it isn't the only parasite to cause white cysts in aquarium fish, which may shine a light on this discussion.
As for heaters, what heat you need depends on the fish. My killies like 20c, so no heaters. My tetras like 25, so heaters. I just make sure I only have one tank of tetras. Later this month when I try to breed those tetras, I'll use heaters. I have to adapt my set up to my fish, and not make them adapt to me. I get up in the morning to take my old dog out, and I don't try to grow tomatoes out back in December.
Fish can shed the parasite in large bodies of water, none of which are home aquariums. We always buy stressed fish - getting netted, transported etc, and in winter, generally getting exposed to some cold.
Here's an anecdote. I once went to the airport to pick up a west African fish import, of about 25 large styros. We were worried because the Canadian weather had taken an unexpected turn and a cold snap had hit. The shipper had sent weeks after he was supposed to. The wonderful airline had left the pallets on the runway outdoors at -30 for several hours (the huge 'tropical fish keep warm' stickers had been ignored).
The outside boxes, the exposed ones, were frozen solid, but the boxes inside still had live fish, in icewater. We acclimated them as quickly as we could (net and drop into warm water) and almost all of those fish survived. We watched for ich, and never saw it. In the weeks we QTed those fish to bring them around, not one got ich, even the notorious 'ich magnets' Microctenopoma. Ich wasn't present to take advantage, in either the water of the wild caught fish or in the well maintained importing installation..
You can go online and hit some pdfs that detail the life cycle of ich, and you'll see it isn't present everywhere. You'll also see it isn't the only parasite to cause white cysts in aquarium fish, which may shine a light on this discussion.
As for heaters, what heat you need depends on the fish. My killies like 20c, so no heaters. My tetras like 25, so heaters. I just make sure I only have one tank of tetras. Later this month when I try to breed those tetras, I'll use heaters. I have to adapt my set up to my fish, and not make them adapt to me. I get up in the morning to take my old dog out, and I don't try to grow tomatoes out back in December.
None of my indoor and outdoor tanks have a heater. I'm doing this for over 4 decades already. They do well at room temperature. But of course, it depends on the needs of those fish kept and the temperature of the environment.
OP
OP
Again, what fish do you keep? I use no heaters with my livebearers or killies. I do have a room, well insulated, that stays above 20c for them. But if I go for Savannah killies, where the sun gets to the water, or fish from warm water, I adapt.
kiko
Fishaholic
20 neon tetras +-, 2 hillstream loaches, about 6+6 oto's and habrosus cory, 5 l46 zebra plecos, 2 dwarf puffers, 6 rasbora, 3 amano shrimp, a few red neo shrimp and a few crystal black shrimp
my house is kept at 25-30C in the winter and around 20C in the summer
to me heaters is the misconception that south-america is super hot all year round...if anybody has been to south-america to places like ecuador or colombia where lots of tropical fish are bred
people will simply say..the coast is very hot but outside of it it's like you have all seasons in a single day...cold during night very hot during day and rain rain rain
so you're looking at 10-15C during night time and 30+ during day time...so there's no fish there that are bred at a constant 28C as they're mostly raised in ponds nearby rivers for overflows..
my issue with that is when you go to stores...they have thrown this so much at people for literally every tropical fish out there that people automatically think...
my fish needs a heater or it's going to die....specially "chasers" will go nuts over this putting double heaters in case 1 breaks down....
most people in north america specially us/canada have central heating for winter and keep their homes at around 21..a little more a little less...depends on the person I guess...
AC in summer not everyone has it...I'd get having an AC in a fish room for the summer to keep them cool but tank heaters?!?!?!?
most tropical fish spawn with rain which means a change in ph and lower temps...so heaters again go out the window....
each to their own..but me personally I believe it's just an item to make $$ on specially in north-america
my house is kept at 25-30C in the winter and around 20C in the summer
to me heaters is the misconception that south-america is super hot all year round...if anybody has been to south-america to places like ecuador or colombia where lots of tropical fish are bred
people will simply say..the coast is very hot but outside of it it's like you have all seasons in a single day...cold during night very hot during day and rain rain rain
so you're looking at 10-15C during night time and 30+ during day time...so there's no fish there that are bred at a constant 28C as they're mostly raised in ponds nearby rivers for overflows..
my issue with that is when you go to stores...they have thrown this so much at people for literally every tropical fish out there that people automatically think...
my fish needs a heater or it's going to die....specially "chasers" will go nuts over this putting double heaters in case 1 breaks down....
most people in north america specially us/canada have central heating for winter and keep their homes at around 21..a little more a little less...depends on the person I guess...
AC in summer not everyone has it...I'd get having an AC in a fish room for the summer to keep them cool but tank heaters?!?!?!?
most tropical fish spawn with rain which means a change in ph and lower temps...so heaters again go out the window....
each to their own..but me personally I believe it's just an item to make $$ on specially in north-america
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I would love to see how long my Discus would last if I took the heater out of the tank. It must be doing something because it costs forty dollars a month in electricity to keep the tank running. The heater only comes on when it is needed and is a safeguard as far as I am concerned.
kiko
Fishaholic
at 14C all day I wouldn't try it...but if you really wanna mimick their environment you could try 28C during day time and 20C night time and they should be fine and be somewhat closer to what they have in nature
but then comes a simple question...at 40 bucks a month for a single heater...wouldn't it be better raise the central heating and this way it'd be warm enough for me to even visit? XD
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TwoTankAmin
Fish Connoisseur
There is a lot more to ich than what is in this thread. Fish which get ich and recover develop an immunity to it. The question is how long it lasts. But the fact that this is the case has led to research into developing a vaccine against ich. It is important to understand that ich is more of a threat to aquaculture, both for food and ornamentals, than it is for individual tanks or hobbyists.
Xu, D.H., Zhang, D., Shoemaker, C. and Beck, B., 2020. Dose effects of a DNA vaccine encoding immobilization antigen on immune response of channel catfish against Ichthyophthirius multifiliis. Fish & Shellfish Immunology, 106, pp.1031-1041.
Buchmann, K., 2020. Immune response to Ichthyophthirius multifiliis and role of IgT. Parasite immunology, 42(8), p.e12675.
Xu, D.H., Zhang, D., Shoemaker, C. and Beck, B., 2020. Dose effects of a DNA vaccine encoding immobilization antigen on immune response of channel catfish against Ichthyophthirius multifiliis. Fish & Shellfish Immunology, 106, pp.1031-1041.
Buchmann, K., 2020. Immune response to Ichthyophthirius multifiliis and role of IgT. Parasite immunology, 42(8), p.e12675.
This is a pretty interesting paper folks might want to skim though https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pim.12675
The forum is useful for me because I’m impulsive and lazy , if I ask a question it’s partly reassurance if I’m honest the question I ask I already know the answer to in a way , I like to see how generations differ in the hobby ,old school is just practical new school is theory . We all can use google where facts are presented but I’d much rather ask a question and see how many people are like minded
All humans need reassurance
All humans need reassurance
Water temperatures don't change as rapidly as air temperatures. So whilst the air temperature might drop to 10C at night in South America, the water temperature will remain fairly constant.
The Amazon River contains millions of litres of water and that is not going to fluctuate overnight. At the surface it might drop 1 or 2 degrees overnight but certainly isn't going to drop 10 degrees.
The Amazon River contains millions of litres of water and that is not going to fluctuate overnight. At the surface it might drop 1 or 2 degrees overnight but certainly isn't going to drop 10 degrees.
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