27/07/2024
■■■Temperature & aeration■■■
● Most aquarium fish are bred in countries like Thailand where temperatures of 90F / 30c plus are normal daytime temperatures, and temperatures of up to 110F or more are not unusual.
Some aquarium fish in the US are bred in polytunnels in Texas. If you have a look on YouTube at places like Goliad Fish farm then temperatures in their fish rooms of 120F to 130F is not unusual in the summer.
● I don't know why people seem to think tropical fish should be kept at low temperatures like 76F or less, because that's not the temperature they live at in the wild, it's not the temperature they are bred at in captivity, and everyone can easily check that themselves by looking at what the temperature is right now pretty much anywhere in the world live on Google. Climate information is also widely available online.
● Don't remove your heater because the tank temperature will drop at night, and your heater will be thermostatically controlled so the heater won't be on anyway if the tank is warmer than the thermostat is set to.
● Get a digital thermometer with probe that goes into the water. They cost at most 2-3 £/$/€. For marine aquaria use a reliable heating controller to control the heaters. I recommend the DD and Aqua Medic ones.
● Cool freshwater can be maybe 11ppm oxygen, even heating the water to over 100F / 38c won't have any significant effect on oxygen levels. Saturation point might drop from 11ppm to 10ppm at most. The majority of fish and aerobic bacteria are fine down to 4ppm, and fish that gulp air can tolerate much lower than that.
● It is extremely rare for fish to suffocate from a lack of oxygen, as oxygen levels rarely fall 7ppm or more. Suffocation is usually caused by an excess of carbon dioxide, not a lack of oxygen. CO2 can accumulate easily and may kill fish if it rises above 30ppm.
● While oxygen very easily enters water from the air, CO2 does not vent out of the water very easily at all. Temperature does not have a hige effect on CO2 levels, problems with excess CO2 are generally caused by oily films forming on the surface of the water due to insufficient water movement and/or poor filtration.
● It's always worth running an airpump for aeration because it:
• Moves water in a different flow pattern compared to water pumps.
• Breaks up oily films at the water surface.
• Removes ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate from the aquarium directly by venting it as nitrogen gas without relying so much on bacteria to process organics.
• Physically removes some toxins from the water because the hydrophyllic surface of air bubbles attract some pollutants, and when the air bubbles pop at the water surface some of those toxic molecules are then thrown into the air and out of the water.
● If you look at almost any large wholesaler, fish farm, etc, you will almost always see them running heavy aeration at all times because heavy aeration isn't just there to increase O2 and reduce CO2, it's also there to vent organics, bounce toxins out of the water, and to ensure the water is mixing vertically to avoid the water separating horizontally into bands of water at different temperatures, salinities, etc. I recommend the battery backed up one made by Aquarium Co-op.
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Footnotes.
• Written by James Goodchild, Salty Revolution, UK, 27th July 2024.
• All product recommendations are based on my personal opinion and I do not receive any financial gain by recommending any of these products or companies.
Links.
• Aquarium Co-op (USA) battery backed up airpumps (also check out some of the other fantastic products made by Cory at Aquarium Co-op).
https://www.aquariumcoop.com/products/aquarium-co-op-air-pump
• DD temperature controller on H2O Aquatics (UK) website.
https://h2oaquatics.co.uk/product/d-d-dual-heating-cooling-controller/
• Aquamedic temperature controlller on H2O Aquatics (UK) website.
https://h2oaquatics.co.uk/product/aqua-medic-t-controller-twin/
• Goliad Farms (USA) YouTube channel link (also check out the fantastic livebearers and cichlids Charles breeds).
https://youtube.com/?si=t73wISab-jpZ8L1O
Aquarium Co-Op
H2O Aquatics
Charles Clapsaddle Goliad Farms
D-D The Aquarium Solution group
