Winter house Temperatures

I'm hoping people will vote to what temperature their thermostat says in their house during the winter. This can help us establish a baseline temperature for what the normal house temperature is for unheated tanks. 

Hopefully we'll be able to make a statement like "Unheated aquariums are defined as aquariums that are run at room temperature." Room temperature is defined as X degrees during the winter or higher.

I voted, but feel like I should explain that my house runs between 69-71 year round. I also have heaters in all tanks, but they aren't on all that much

Thanks for the input. I think most of the problem is letting fish get too cold here in Washington, not so much getting too hot. Also too hot is a problem whether or not you have a heater in the tank.

Once we establish a baseline we can find fish that will thrive in these tanks through some experiments etc.

Hey Cory,

None of the above.

I don't know about others but I keep my home at 69 degrees during the day but at night turn it down to about 58 degrees.  I like run my tanks at 78 degrees; therefore I run heaters in all of my tanks.  Not only do i run heaters but I 'oversize' them due to the lower average ambient temperature.  Typically we used to recommend 5 watts per gallon if we want to maintain 10 degrees above average room temperature; since I need to maintain about 15 degrees above the average room temperature I run about 7 watts per gallon.

Interesting, I hadn't considered the night time temps. But in my research thus far in an aquarium of like 55 gallon it shouldn't drop that much in temp over the night before the morning again.

While yes there are many fish who prefer warmer water. I'm on the hunt for popular fish that can go coolwater. In one of the articles a person claims to be keeping Gertrudae rainbows at 12 celsius! Which is 53.6 degrees! 

I think its good to remember that fish and plants can be kept in a lot of different situation, but in what way are they kept where they are thriving and not just surviving.

My ambient room temperature at night is higher than during the summer due to a closed door and a furnace blasting the rest of the house. Even in the basement the room gets to the mid 70's.. and all the water really holds in the heat.

hobbyorobsession wrote:I think its good to remember that fish and plants can be kept in a lot of different situation, but in what way are they kept where they are thriving and not just surviving.

While I agree with theres a difference between thriving and surviving. I think we'd have to establish what thriving is for each species. As one of the article author states. Keeping temperatures at breeding temps year round can exhaust some fish like angels etc. 

I'm thinking that if I could keep a fish in a tank year round, and they get a breeding season and a more dormant season that would be much closer to wild habitats.

Whether this pans out or not. I'll have to experiment.

I would assume a fluctuation in temp would be more in tune to a natural environment. Cooler rain washing in to the water system

I myself in the Summer kept the house at 60, and like Roy my evening temps are down around 55 -60. In the Winter I vent my dehumidifier into the fish room instead of outside. That alone keeps the fish room around 84 and my entire house (when i leave the door open to the fish room) around 75. At night I close the door and open the window in my room, so the temp drops to around 55. (which really doesnt apply really lol) My fish room all year around sits around 80 degrees.

Aquarium Co-Op wrote:

hobbyorobsession wrote:I think its good to remember that fish and plants can be kept in a lot of different situation, but in what way are they kept where they are thriving and not just surviving.

While I agree with theres a difference between thriving and surviving. I think we'd have to establish what thriving is for each species. As one of the article author states. Keeping temperatures at breeding temps year round can exhaust some fish like angels etc. 

I'm thinking that if I could keep a fish in a tank year round, and they get a breeding season and a more dormant season that would be much closer to wild habitats.

Whether this pans out or not. I'll have to experiment.

I too have read articles that allude to the fact that having breeding temps year round in your tanks will accelerate the life of your fish (i.e. age them prematurely) as well as cause more health problems through weakened immune responses because the fish are always in a heightened spawning mode.

I am going to get to see some of this cooler water experimentation in effect this year because of our indoor "pond" which has some unplanned tropical fry in it along with some cooler water fish.  Trying to figure out how to handle this situation is difficult.  My plan was for the cooler weather fish to be the only occupants of this unheated garage tank but having had a mom apparently spit her babies when we moved her out of this tank has left us with a quandry.  

Ambient temps in the garage are dropping but so far the tropical fry seem to be doing OK.  We have not put a heater in the tank yet but after today the pond tank will be the only tank left in the garage and we will unplug the small plug in heater that provides some additional heat to the garage area (which has been keeping the garage at a modest 68-70 degrees with outside temps being in the low 40s at night and 50 during the day).

Our garage has one large vent that comes from the main heating system which keeps the room from ever reaching freezing temps as well as being totally insulated.  But, I know our temps out there can reach 40 degrees or so in the dead of winter.  Our house temps are 69-70 during the day and 65 at night.

Our true coldwater experiment begins tonight when the pond tank becomes the lone tank in the garage.  Our plan is to put a small heater into the tank that is used for heating stock tanks (we had it left over from our living in the country days) .  It will be the only heat for the tank overwinter.  It will be interesting (although it is scary too...the thought that I may lose some if not all of fish) to see how things fair.

Seattle_Aquarist wrote:Hey Cory,

None of the above.

I don't know about others but I keep my home at 69 degrees during the day but at night turn it down to about 58 degrees.  I like run my tanks at 78 degrees; therefore I run heaters in all of my tanks.  Not only do i run heaters but I 'oversize' them due to the lower average ambient temperature.  Typically we used to recommend 5 watts per gallon if we want to maintain 10 degrees above average room temperature; since I need to maintain about 15 degrees above the average room temperature I run about 7 watts per gallon.

 

I let it drop to 63 at night and keep it at 67 during the day. I keep heaters in all of my tanks with larger heaters in the garage since it drops down more out there (insulated, but no active heating). Temperatures in my tanks vary between 74 and 78 generally.

It sounds like the case of "night time temp < day time temp" is getting established, and there may be a difference of 10, maybe 15 degrees. Do folks let the temperature vary even more?

This raises a ton of questions like:
What effect does a fish tank have on a room cooling down at night? (My theory is that it introduces a buffer to the temperature, slowing down the cooling and slowing down the warming up of the room).
What range does the water have at the collection spots for a lot of these fish? (My theory is that local waters have an even wider temp range with a lot less regularity. Meaning, some days, in nature temp may have a high of 75 and a low of 65, and on others temp may have a high of 68 and a low of 65.)
Are there fish that have their collection spots regularly monitored for temperature? (Thinking of south americans, this doesn't sound likely. I wonder if other species collected from larger rivers or lakes may have their water monitored by environmental groups of some sort)

These are questions we may want to start pondering on other threads. As we find answers to them we may be able to find fish that better suit our living conditions rather than enforcing the 78 degree temp requirement. This I would argue is the thinking process behind having an unheated aquarium forum is coming from.

When I had my apartment, I never even heated the living room unless there was snow on the ground. It was a middle apartment of three, so stayed about 50 during the day and 40 or so at night. My 38, 40, and 50 gallon tanks maybe had a 2-3 degree swing overnight. I was keeping warmer water south americans though, most of my tanks were set for 82F. My 20 longs had a bigger temp swing, usually 4-6 degrees though that makes sense, less water means less heat buffering.