Quote:
Originally Posted by saganco
Yeah, they seem to do fine in the warmer water. I sold some plants from that tank when it was "at least" 78 in the daytime - and the gal just emailed me to tell me she has "mystery fish" in her tank now! I did have to kick the tank up to 84 for two weeks to get rid of an infection - but did loose two of the female rainbows - don't know if the infection got them (never saw it on them), or if the heat did it. But we're back down to 78 and all are fine again. Funny huh?
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I think that 78 degrees is fine, and I'm not surprised that they spawned at that temperature. Some rainbowfish people will tell you 75-76, others will say 73-80. Like I said, my tank stays up in the high seventies during the summer and sometimes gets over 81. I haven't seen any detrimental effects on the fish, but I start putting frozen bottles of water in the sump to try to control the temp when It gets that hot. My heater is set to 76, so that's the temp it's at in the winter. I figure in the wild these fish experience seasonal temperature changes greater than these, going over 81 in the summer and below 76 in the winter, so they should do fine with the changes ocurring in my aquarium. Some people with heavy fish loads and less aeration may have low oxygen problems in the summer exasperated by higher temps, but I have a trickle filter that aerates the water very well, so it's not a problem for me.