Temperature, Silver

[Andyroo]

Y'all
So we moved house and moved office (from home-office) including ~300Gal of aquariums & ~20 fish all in ~5days. Ouch...

The 100Gal "show" found itself on the wrong truck and went to the house, at 1500' elevation so can get quite cold at night with a 'variable" power supply. All of the interior floors are "vintage" hardwood and not really to be trusted with 1000lbs of glass & water, so to set it up at house it'll be outside.

Q: what's the minimum (lethal) temperature for a >10" silver?
Lit. says that Cichla introductions in Texas died at 16C whereas the Fla are still there 20yrs(++) later, even through major cold-snaps. I appreciate that a freestanding glass box isn't a mud-bottom Fla slough

I will be able to add a heater to the filter's UPS, and then the 200gal in-wall should be done for December.
Winter nights can drop to 8~12C circa 4AM, but they're back to 20+ with the first sun.

Alt, I move the tank back down to the in-town office with 25C as the coldest winter's day.

Thanks,
Andrew

PS: please recommend an efficient heater, preferably with a numbered thermostat rather than just that terrible up/down screw

 

[Kashif314]

I am unable to answer your questions as I am not an expert on SA. However I never ever owned a tank without heater regardless of what the temperature is outside. It keeps the tamk temperature stable both in winters and summers when you have air conditioning outside so I suggest you have a heater in all your tanks. Set the temperature and you ll have peace of mind.

 

[Andyroo]

Appreciated Kashif- that's the plan, I'm just wondering how dedicated I need to be , as I've become pretty complacent in the last few years... I'll have a heater & filter on a UPS, and in the old days had the wife's yoga-mat taped around the tank for the coldest nights. I've also had terrible luck with heaters giving up at inopportune moments, so trying to hedge my bets from several angles.

 

[Kashif314]

Appreciated Kashif- that's the plan, I'm just wondering how dedicated I need to be , as I've become pretty complacent in the last few years... I'll have a heater & filter on a UPS, and in the old days had the wife's yoga-mat taped around the tank for the coldest nights. I've also had terrible luck with heaters giving up at inopportune moments, so trying to hedge my bets from several angles.

There is one problem in the absence of heater amd and that is temperature fluctuations for your fish. Its more bad than having too warm or cold to the liking of fish. Without heater the temperature will drop significantly at night during winters and will inceease during the day.

My tanks are placed in a room with air conditioning so I have to put a heater inside to keep things stable. Even for my cold water invertebrates like shrimps I had a heater set up because when room gets too cold the water temperature will go down significantly.

I understand the mishaps with heaters you had in past but still I insist you get a heatsr asap. No need to worry if its cold outside or hot. Some heaters have breakers inside like if some malfunctioning the heater stops working. Fluval I think have such heaters. I believe there will be many brands who make auto shut off heater systems.

 

[Andyroo]

FYI, stumbled onto this: <https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/21/339/2021/>

Friagem event low-temperature spikes at Manaus, Brazil. Don't see what happens to water temperatures, but shallows & backwaters would feel it. No mention of fish-kill, though I only scanned. Other articles describe falling into the low-teens C.
Solimões at Manaus is apparently regularly 22 whereas Rio Negril is beyond 26 - part of why they don't mix.