fish that live in “hot” water???

[Magnum Man]

so, looks like we get a little break from the extreme heat we’ve been having, but summer is not over…. I did lose one fish, out of the tanks in the unairconditioned part of the house, where the tanks have gotten much hotter than I normally keep them… a several year old super red bushy nose pleco, weather it succumbed to the heat or other causes is unknown… but it made me wonder which fish inhabit areas where the water actually gets to bath water temperatures??? we know the air temps get hot, but most waters are much cooler… I’m glad to see my tank temp drop several degrees the last couple days, but because these tanks are in an area of the house unlikely to ever see air conditioning, I’m thinking long term about what fish would best handle the extreme heat…

this was my high temp, recorded a few days ago… the set point of 70 degrees can of course be adjusted, but I can’t control the heat of the room bringing the tank temp up…

 

[Magnum Man]

I did a quick search, and initially sounds like there are several “pup fish” that naturally live in the hottest waters, but discus were listed as well, so time to “dive” into fish that live in the same water temperatures as discus… however I would prefer to keep these tanks as hard water, as it’s natural here, and these are furthest away from my RO system…

 

[Magnum Man]

so Platy’s look like a good choice for my top ( hottest ) tank in this area… if I can believe what I read in the www.

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[GaryE]

Here's my issue in the fishroom. I get very warm water now, but in winter, I don't. So an unheated tank sits at 26 today (and 27 last week), but in January, that tank can be 20 or 22. If I get fish from 26 or higher waters, then I have to maintain the heat all year. I want fish that will survive the heat since it's at most a short part of the year. Ultimately, there are 3 seasons where high heat isn't a problem.

If I get Discus because of month or two of high water temperatures, I have a tank heating issue for the rest of the year. I don't trust aquarium heaters. I've had too many kill fish that if I can avoid them, I do.

I tell my fish to grit their teeth and hang on, and I do more water changes. But I also take advantage of the 'free' warmth to breed some fish. My Benin caught Chromaphyosemion biteniatum are filling their tanks with fry and have been since we got above 24c. They will grow and do fine all Fall, winter and Spring, and next summer will be ready to go nuts again. I kept Nigerian ones for 15 years to see that process.

My cooler water fish are unhappy, but in 3 weeks or so, temperatures will cool here. Some of you have months of it ahead. But winter comes.

 

[GaryE]

I don't like the quality of the info you got online there, @Magnum Man . If you keep lacustris/turquoise rainbows at the high end of their temperature range, be prepared for the Mycobacteriosis most farmed ones harbour to blossom and kill them far too young. Ditto for platys, which often fade young when it's too hot for too long.

Congos tend to thrive as long as the water is kicking along at a good pace. Give them a current an a long tank, and they adapt.

 

[Magnum Man]

it’s been a long time, since I’ve had a heater control fail, and go hot, for me they typically just quit heating… so I look at bringing the temperature up, as something I can control, and bringing it down ( at least below room temperature ), as difficult, and with the main part of the house air conditioned and set at 75 degrees, seems reasonable… but these couple tanks in a room that goes to 90 degrees in extreme heat times, is harder to deal with… short of tearing them down, I just need to find fish that can handle those temps for a month or so…

 

[Magnum Man]

after the tb issues with a rainbow tank I had before, as much as I like the look, it soured me terribly and I will probably never have rainbows again…

I have congo’s in my african tank in the main part of the house, so I likely wouldn’t go that route, unless it was one of the best fits…

so far, I’m liking the platy idea, as I can control the temperature 10 months out of the year, and as this is a “walk by” tank ( no chairs to sit and enjoy the view ) so the colorful platy is more appealing than a small silver fish, or something that hides all the time…

 

[Naughts]

I wouldn’t consider platies for those temperatures. I think of them as sub-tropical (68-79f, 20-26c from Seriouslyfish) and imagine a lot of stress in prolonged periods outside of that range.
An aquarium would look great in my garden room but the fish would cook in summer so I can’t use it for tanks.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

This will not help you because the price of the fish can be difficult to pay.

I worked with a few of the Hypancistus plecos from the Big Bend of the Rio Xingu which included zebra, L236 (no a part of the K. seideli complex), L173 and L173b. The water there can get pretty war. If I had to do a dry/rainy season simulation the peak temp. I had their water was in the low 90s F when I was ready to onset the rainy season.

I had two heater failures which both had a heater get stuck full on. When I discovered this in the first tank (a 40B) the temp, was about 104F. The two discus were dead, the 10-12 rummy nose tetras were mush balls but the 5 Hypancistrus L450 were all hunkered down in caves. They all survived and gave me their first spawn a few weeks later.

The second occasion was in my tank of L236. Unfortunately, the temp. in that tank was about 123F. Nothing survived that. But this convinced me I needed to use heater controllers on a number of my tanks. Ultimately, I had controllers on all the Hypancistrus tanks.

I have always used multiple heaters on most of my tanks. This has helped when one heater quit but was no help when the problem is a heater gets stuck full on. A controller is a big help with that.

The Big bend is unusual in terms of the high and low water temps due to seasonality. The fish there have evolved to handle the fact that the water can be as low as the mud- high 70s and as high as the low 90s. This is a somewhat rare thing. While the Desert Hole Pupfish is pretty unique, it can handle high temps but these do not drop anywhere near as low as the Big Bend can. At least there the issue of low dissolved oxygen in water in the 90s is countered but all the rapids there which act to oxygenate the water really well.

My most important solution for making sure my tanks can be maintained at different temp. is a whole house back-up generator combined with heaters in tanks. This means we do not lose power. So the house heat and AC do not quit because of power outages. We run the AC at 75 unless it is really humid and then we drop it to 74. The heating doesn't quit either unless the furnace has an issue. But we have service contracts for both furnaces and for the AC and the generator. We usually have a repair person here withing an hour or two of calling for help when we have needed it.

We pay a lot for all of this and are fortunate to able to afford the costs. My brother and I are two old bachelors and we both have decent enough incomes that we can cover the costs. Also, the house has no basement and I have no fish room. So I have to use heaters in all but one of my tanks.

My tanks range in water temps at about 77 in the coolest to mid-80s in the warmest. the one tank with not heater n it is a 5.5 gal. with red cherry Neocaradinas, But it is on a shelf 6+ feet up a wall. it stays warm because the air temp up there is high enough to keep the tank as warm as it needs to be.

There are not all that many species of fish that have wide temperature ranges where the water swings between a fairs wide set of extremes. My Hypancistrus which can handle low 90s and even just over 100F for a while do not do well much below about 76F. Zebras will for sure die when the water gets into the low 60s for a short time. I never go below 75 for very long when I onset a rain season. I will do a 50% water change on a tank in the low 90s using water at 75. But I do two such changes over 36 hours. The first will get the temp down into the low 80s and the second into the high 70s. When they are done and I turn the heaters back on.

I control the temp by turning off the heaters for the change but then turning them back on after the cool refill. The water never stays below at a low of about 76 for very long and when I turn the heaters back on I have them set for about 80F. I will raise this a few degrees with a few weeks. But for most of the year I am in the 83-86 range.

BTW, when I had to remove two existing zebras from the tank into which the breeding group was going in order not the break the established pecking order of the breeding group, I parker the two zebras in my discus tank at that time.

 

[Innesfan]

Most serious Discus fanciers keep their fish consistently above 80F usually in the 84F-86F range and higher for disease treatment. The same temps are recommended for Mikrogeophagus ramerizi ("Rams") especially the wild forms.

 

[Darby T]

Had a disaster once when a heater come apart in the tank. It was a 4ft fully stocked community tank. The freed heater coil was acting as a jug element, completely out of control. What the temperature was I have no idea, hot, very hot. As you can imagine there were dead fish everywhere. The big surprise was that my Australia rainbows were still swimming around alive and well. I no longer fully submerge my heaters.