I currently have two tanks: a 55 gallon community tank and a 10 gallon tank with just CPD. Both are doing well. The 55 has a heater but the heater in the 10 gallon broke (and overheated the tank) and I just never replaced it. I live in Southern California where the house temperature doesn't go down much at night.
Since the 10 gallon is thriving after a year without a heater I'm considering removing the one from the 55, too. Given how well water "holds" heat I'm not sure if the temperature will fluxuate enough to cause problems.
Any thoughts on this? How sensitive are the typical freshwater aquarium fishes to temperature changes?
Posted by Regular-Apricot4114
19 Comments
Some fish evolved closer to the equator than others, and require warm water to stay healthy. Lots of fish don’t need heated water, such as many of the SE Asian species
This strongly depends on the ambient temperature and the fish. Without knowing what your room temperature is we can not answer the question for you.
As an example: there’s no heater in my hillstreamloaches/shrimp tank, even though ambient temperatures can drop to 15 degC. OTOH my angelfish wouldn’t survive this without a heater in the tank
Depends entirely on your specific species of fish and your room temperature. Slight day/night fluctuations are fine. If your room never drops under 20°C/70°F or so, CPDs should be fine.
This is fish and house temp dependent as others have said. But I never heat my tank, house stays around 70-72.
CPDs like cooler temps, dunno about the fish in the 55g tho
I live in Northern Europe and use a heater in the autumn/winter/spring. With global warming heating up my apartment interior significantly in the summer, I unplug the heater and occasionally have to use a cooling fan so the excess heat doesn’t kill my fish and shrimp.
Well mine just broke and killed everything in the tank, but I’m not somewhere warm so!
Depends on your fish stocking and your ambient temperature in your living space. I live in Alaska and never run heaters in my tanks. I keep the rooms the tanks are in heated instead and not much above room temperature (~70-72F). I have species appropriate fish too. For example you don’t want to do this for Discus.
Not for cold water fish! Like white cloud mountain minnows!
My room temperature rarely goes beneath 18degrees Celsius. I keep an unheated tank with lot’s of species like CPD, Ember Tetra, Green Neon Tetra, Ruby Tetra, pygmy Cory, otocinclus, pangio species, kubotai, emerald rasbora, boraras species, danio tinwini and others. Not all plants like it tho, I keep a bunch of Anubias, Crypts, Buce, mosses and a couple others
Consistency is good, when it got to winter here and I didn’t have a heater my fish got stressed. Things like air conditioning or heaters can easily alter the temperature and make it too cold or hot for your fish
I think, like others said it depends on your general location and the actual room temp. A betta in southern Malaysia? Probably not.
I keep a lot of plecos from the Rio Xingu and warmer Brazilian waters in the cold Midwest. Heaters are a must to keep my little guys thriving
It depends on a few factors.
First of all is the species of fish themselves. Minnows and goldfish are perfectly happy at room temperature water, often even below room temp. But a lot of the tropical species are…well tropical and so need warmer conditions than what you can normally achieve without a heater.
The other factor is the temp of the room the tank is in. Water will hit the ambient temp of the room and become “room temperature”. If you’re living in the tropics yourself and the average temperature is 75-80 degrees year around and you’re not using air conditioning so the room stays at that 75-80 degrees as well…then no you won’t need a heater.
If you’re like a lot of the people in temperate climates where there is a difference between summer and winter temps and you like the room kept at 68-72…then yes you need a heater to goose the water into the warmer temps that tropical species need.
TL:DR If you’re keeping tropical fish and you like rooms at the 68-72 degree range…you’re going to need a heater. If you’re keeping colder water species then no.
Depends on a couple of factors.
What species are you keeping?
What’s the average room temperature of the space you plan to keep them?
Does the temperature fluctuate a lot throughout the day in that space?
If the species thrives in cooler water like White Cloud Mountain minnows, the room temperature stays within their preferred range and doesn’t fluctuate wildly throughout the day, then no a heater isn’t necessary.
My house stays between 68 and 72 year round. The tanks are around 72-74 in the winter and 76-78 in the summer. The lights warm them some during the day/evening. I haven’t used a heater in years.
70f is fine for like 90% of fish species
It keeps the temperature stable so very useful in cold climates
Ever been somewhere cold? Fish live there too. Find out where your fish are from and cater to their needs.
Some fish do better in cooler water and are more tolerate of fluctuations
However fish that live in the tropics are used to warm, stable temperatures yearround, so a heater is necessary to keep the temperature and stable during seasonal changes or if the temperature drops at night, especially during winter when it might get too cold for comfort
Even if the temperature changes won’t kill them immediately, it can still cause them stress