who keeps cooler water tanks???

[fishorama]

I have 1 heated 20g long tank to 86F. It loses quite a bit of water from evaporation, glass lid but not tightly covered. My 55 river-ish tank, 75g bn pleco & cory & 110 plant only tanks are not heated. My house is heated winter days to 69-71F but lights & filters keep tanks warmer ~73F or so. The larger tanks don't lose much heat overnight at 65F for a few hours. Fine for fish I keep & sleeping, but I'm often up for a couple hours in the middle of the night & may turn up the thermostat a couple degrees. Of course in summer tanks are warmer although we use AC to 75-76-ish during the day.

Thank goodness we have solar panels! Our electric power is high here as are our summer temps. But we only pay~$30/mo for "distribution fees" & gas hot water...& we have a pool too. Off topic, but our best investment for $$ & the environment too (smug smile)

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Bro and I are in our 70s- he 75 and me 77. We do not like it cold. Also, I spent 18 or so months in the late 1970s working in Saudi Arabia. Since then, cold bother me more and heat does so less. We have our heat set at 72F and we set it at 74F for the hotter months when the AC runs. If it gets really humid in the summer we drop the tempt to 73F.

Our house has vaulted ceilings and is also split level. These two things definitely effect the temperature. Most of my tanks need to be warmer. When I was breeding the Hypancistrus those tanks warmed rooms. MY other tanks are at 77-78F. The biggest effect of having 20 tanks was they helped to humidify the air. My tanks actually replaced the humidifier on our central heating. We only discovered the humidifier had broken when they did the annual servicing on the furnace. The evaporation from the 12-14 tanks in the main house was enough to keep the humidity up.

The humidifier was installed many years ago when my parents owned the home. They had a number of oil paintings. They degrade when there are humidity fluctuations due to the seasonality. The paint actually expands and contracts in response to humidity changes. This causes the paint to crack. It is what happened to the Mona Lisa. Modern museums regulate temperature and humidity.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Bro and I are in our 70s- he 75 and me 77. We do not like it cold. Also, I spent 18 or so months in the late 1970s working in Saudi Arabia. Since then, cold bother me more and heat does so less. We have our heat set at 72F and we set it at 74F for the hotter months when the AC runs. If it gets really humid in the summer we drop the tempt to 73F.

Our house has vaulted ceilings and is also split level. These two things definitely effect the temperature. Most of my tanks need to be warmer. When I was breeding the Hypancistrus those tanks warmed rooms. MY other tanks are at 77-78F. The biggest effect of having 20 tanks was they helped to humidify the air. My tanks actually replaced the humidifier on our central heating. We only discovered the humidifier had broken when they did the annual servicing on the furnace. The evaporation from the 12-14 tanks in the main house was enough to keep the humidity up.

The humidifier was installed many years ago when my parents owned the home. They had a number of oil paintings. They degrade when there are humidity fluctuations due to the seasonality. The paint actually expands and contracts in response to humidity changes. This causes the paint to crack. It is what happened to the Mona Lisa. Modern museums regulate temperature and humidity.

View attachment 374635

Here I always thought ol' Lisa just had really dry skin...

 

[Boundava]

I'll admit I think the hobby has been slowly increasing tank temperatures... my motivation there was because of a couple tanks with Ich outbreaks , but in all fairness these tanks had fish added with out a quarantine... but I rather doubt heating up the tanks a few extra degrees would prevent an Ich outbreak if you had that parasite in your tanks...

knock on the top of my head, no Ich outbreaks for probably at least 2 years... but I now have several temperate water tanks... my 4 - 10 gallon colored shrimp tanks, that each contains live bearers, and 2 - 55 gallon tanks one, including my Hillstream tank...

but I also had a heater go out on a 30 gallon Cichlid / Silver Dollar tank, with my worm line pleco... I had enough other expenses, that I put off replacing that heater for a few months during the summer... the new heater is going in this weekend as summer is definitely over... anyway this tank went from it's normal setting of 78 degree F. to just over 70, for the last couple months... no real ill effect noticed, except the worm line has been less active... but nothing noticed with the Cichlid or Dollar...

maybe the hobby is trying to mimic climate change... but I suspect the water temperatures in the wild aren't that simple... heavy rains could actually cool some water sources because of the clouds and rain, and I'd guess the fish are not actually liking areas where the water temps are rising...

my typical tropical temps are around 78 degrees F. ( that's the year I graduated, and that how my mind works ) my temperate tanks are set at 71 or 72 degrees...

I know that there are pickier fish that require a specific temp, and breeding offers it's own set of temperature challenges...

how do you determine the temperatures you keep fish at in this changing world???

In my last house I made an attempt to keep ranchu and oranda goldfish in a 350 gallon stock tub in the basement sitting in pink insulation foam sheets.Goldfish don't need heat. I had 2 things working against me, the municipal well water and the lid that wouldn't keep out my little calico Zelda aka big trouble in little kitten.
I currently have a 5.5 gallon unheated that holds feeder minnows for my saltwater leaf fish, they do fine without heat.

 

[Gertrudae]

Most of my aquariums do not have heating. Tanichthys, medaka, Pseudomugil gertrudae and many other species are healthier and live longer when they are kept at colder temperatures in winter and at varying temperatures during the day and night.

Even my Endler's look comfortable and active at temperatures of down to 17 °C. They don't reproduce during winter and I think that's a welcome break for the females.