throttling back… cold well water…

[Magnum Man33 147]

I know some people are really anal about things… as far as adding water, my well water is coming in around 60 degrees… on my shrimp / small live bearer tanks I use 1/4 inch line to fill the tanks… very slow fill, but only drops the 10 gallon tanks a couple degrees until the little heaters catch up… everything is breeding, so it must be an acceptable temperature range…

on the bigger live bearer tanks, I’m filling with a 1/2 inch hose, and at wide open valve, it drops the temperature well below 70 degrees… the fish in that tank survive, but right now nothing is breeding in that tank… in the tank with my breeding wild type swords, I throttle the valve back about half way… it takes a lot longer to fill that 65 gallon tank, but the temp stays above 70 degrees and doesn’t appear to disrupt their breeding…

I’d be curious how much temperature range a lot of these fish see, in their natural environment??? I know from scuba diving, dropping 10 feet deeper in a lake, the water can go from warm, to down right chilly… I’m sure in a fast flowing stream, the water temp is likely more consistent, but if water languishes in full sun, there is likely a pretty big temp change to shady water, on a slowly moving body of water

 

[Magnum Man33 147]

the addition of cool fresh water appears to get the male more interested in the females again…

 

[Uberhoust]

I always run the refill water a couple of degrees below the target for the tank. 50% of the time it triggers one of the Angel pairs to attempt breeding. Overall, the fish seem to enjoy the little drop in temperature.

 

[GaryE]

If fish are very well established, a drop of 3 degrees celsius is what I've read is safe. If the fish are in quarantine, however, a temperature drop will make any wandering ich present very happy indeed.

As usual, you have to go species by species. Some rarely if ever encounter temperature changes and are very sensitive - others take it in stride because that's what nature handed them.

 

[Magnum Man33 147]

the well water is rock hard… you can see all the minerals in the water… it’ll clear fully in 4-5 hours… this is not just a cloudy aquarium… it is rock hard well water, high in calcium, and a fair amount of iron… it’s full of fish, but as heavy as the water is right now, I can only see one in this picture