Re: [RML] Minimum temperatures

Adrian R. Tappin (atappin at ecn.net.au)
Wed, 30 Jul 1997 07:07:55 +1000

At 14:40 29/07/97 +0200, Patrick Aldag wrote:

>snip,snip,

>How long can bows stay a temperatures of 10 degreee C - this must be an
>absolute extreme, isnīt it ?

One aquarist who lives in Ipswich, Queensland used to keep all his
Rainbowfishes & Blue-eyes (both NG & Australian species) outside in a
'shade' house. (This was just a open frame type shed totally covered with
shadecloth). In Ipswich during the winter period temperatures can drop to
zero or just under rising to 10-18 degrees Celsius during the day. Although
some survived these temperatures he used to have fairly large losses at
times including a total kill of certain species. I'm not sure at what
temperatures the water use to run at all the time but once I tested the
water temperature at 5 degrees Celsius. The problem with water temperatures
exposed to 'natural' weather conditions is once they drop they are very
difficult to get them to rise again without artificial heating. I really
don't see the reason why anyone would want to keep rainbowfishes at such low
temperatures anyway??????

I do not heat my fishes during our winter here in Brisbane but my fishroom
rarely drops below 20 degrees Celsius. On occasions the water temperature
has dropped to 18 degrees and you can definitely see some of the rainbows
are stressed while others seem to handle it ok, providing it doesn't stay
low for an extended period.

Adrian.
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Adrian R. Tappin
Home of the Rainbowfish
http://www.ecn.net.au/~atappin/home.htm
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