I live in the south and this snow storm has put such a strain on my HVAC, my house can’t stay warm and it’s down to 54 degrees. My fish are in a large open part of my house that is the most impacted. I have black & white skirt tetra, red eye tetra, Julii Cory, and Kuhli loaches. My tank temps have fallen from 78 degrees to below 68 degrees and falling. I have a tank heater but I think it’s also struggling with the cold. I put a blanket over the tank to help insulate it and hope that keeps the temps from falling further but will my fish be okay? Can they withstand temps falling like this? Should I try adding warm water to the tank or something?
The picture is from a few weeks ago, just adding it for reference 🫶🏻
Posted by cruzorlose
8 Comments
Idk if you’ve tried this yet but turn up the tank heater above your targeted temp. I have to do this in the winter in the north and it helps. Just keep an eye on water temp over the next few days and be ready to turn it back down once temps return to the norm.
Heaters do two tasks:
1. Heating the tank
2. maintaining a consistent tempreture
Temperature fluctuation can significantly stress the fish.
You could also put a blanket over the tank to try to insulate, but I also agree about turning up the heater and monitoring
Try removing some tank water, putting it in a clean pot on the stove, then warm it up touch and put in tank for a fix until you can buy another heater. I would get at least a 150W for that tank, 200W would be even better.
You could also add a second heater! The furnace in our house croaked while we were away over new years, and we got home and found the house at about 55F.
The tanks were all totally fine, I think in part because I have “overpowered” heaters that could make up the difference.
They should be ok with the advice that everyone else listed. I was able to keep mine warm by closing off the tank completely and covering it with a tarp/warm blanket. Hope this helps. I also live in the south and this snowstorm is killer
Do not increase the temps of the tank heater above your target temp. Anyone saying to do this doesn’t understand how thermostats work. Do not add heated water to the tank. The drastic temperature increase will stress the fish much worse than the gradually decreasing temperature. Reduce aeration. The air pumped into the tank cools the water since it’s much cooler than the water temp. Aeration is almost never necessary and is of reduced importance the lower the temp gets as cooler water naturally holds more dissolved gas (think of soda.) The blanket, or many blankets is a great idea, adding more or larger wattage tank heaters is the best solution. Bottom line though – they will survive a LONG time – weeks if you can keep it above 55, and just adding blankets should have almost no problem keeping it above 60 with your current heater.
Bigger heater!
I’m from the uk so cold is common! my house is often 12-13c in the morning when I wake up before putting the heating on (I like being cold over night lol). I over spec my heaters for that reason. Tend to use a 100w heater per 50L.