Northern Pike Temperature

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I kept mine for a while at 80 degrees.... just ate more and grew faster.Lots and lots of aeration though. bubble walls covering the tank pretty much. You can keep them with anything that will disturb them though or else they will go off they're food and die. Definitly not a fish for beginners.
 
As they get bigger they prefer cooler temps...I believe large pike like temps around 55*, but smaller pike like it a bit warmer.
 
Pretty strong jumpers past the 12" mark too. I had one in my 450g native set-up, jumped out even with eggcrate and 2x4's on top. Cool fish, but I wont try another one in my home aquarium.
 
I wouldnt try it above the high 60s low 70s. Im surprised arowanaryan had success in the 80s, but as he said, aeration is the key and possibly more important than temperature
 
Thanks for info everyone, so would you say in a big enough tank a northern pike and an Alligator Gar could live together? obviously I'd expect the Alligator Gar to outgrow the Pike and one of them would have to be moved when it gets to the stage of being lunch! but just wondered if they could live together?
 
sam_everist said:
Thanks for info everyone, so would you say in a big enough tank a northern pike and an Alligator Gar could live together? obviously I'd expect the Alligator Gar to outgrow the Pike and one of them would have to be moved when it gets to the stage of being lunch! but just wondered if they could live together?
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I think that the gator gar would outgrow the pike so quickly it would scare the piss outta you! Keep the pike, ditch the gator. Northern Pike are way cooler and far more unusual to have in an aquarium.

I stated before that I had success in the low 80's. Be noted, this is not the norm', Northerns prefer water from low 70's-higher 50's. However my northerns had a propensity for developing ick for some reason. I stopped this problem with the increase in temperature. When I added the temperature I also added 2 16 inch bubble walls to a tank already loaded with them. I never got either of them to even consider non-live food, it was always either cut night crawlers, tiny WC bugs from the stream out behind the house, or rosie red minnows (which he/she would absolutely stuff themselves with). After I increased the temperature the only short term changes were drastically more eating and growing from the pike. I specified short term because temperature that is higher then preferred for a particular species tends to come back to bite overtime and even sometimes shortens the life-span of the fish in question. This may or may not have happened, I don't know because one of them died when it jumped (like a previous member said), and smashed its head in. The other way thrown off his food and then consequently after being bullied by a tiny WC Oscar that was meant to be a tank mate as I did not know any better at the time but I honestly couldn't have picked a worse tank mate. The pike stopped eating an hour after the oscars introduction and never ate again and died 4 days later. I hope some of this helps and I can definitely keep helping on this subject if you need it.... I want to see someone else try with a Northern!
 
Yeah I Love northerns, and have grown up cathing them, I just like to have more than one fish in a tank, I.E I had a huge channa micro for a while and was awesome, but I soon got bored with just one fish... anyone got any ideas for possible tank mates? I know Northerns dont make good tank mates for anything really, but would something like a big catfish be ok do you think?
 
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