What Temperature Do You Keep Your Puffer Tank?

[RTR]

Considering the wide variety of habitats from which they came, there really can be no ideal temperature or the whole family of pufferfish. For tropicals in general, the situation is even murkier. Some of the popular Asian fish are not really warm water fish, would likely do best slightly lower than many of us can keep our tanks. The higher temperatures will not do great harm, but may not be ideal, and long-term will result in somewhat shorter lives. I do have tanks where I would like to keep some of the cooler but still "tropical" Rasboras, but those particular tanks always run 80-ish F, so I limit myself to the warmer Rasboras in them. I run at least a couple of 30-gallon-tall tanks, and for me they all run approximately 80F.

I have not used a heater in well over 20 years now, other than in my water aging vessels. If anything I would need chillers, but they dump so much heat into the area that their effect is negligible, and their power use is high. They are not very efficient units.

Part of our difficulty in breeding puffers is that we know little or nothing of the breeding triggers for these fish - temperature and water parameters are quite likely involved in the wild, and our constant temperatures may be highly unfavorable for breeding.

[Lil' Swimz$]

75-78F. I try to keep it at 80F but lately its dropped.

[L!$A]

I keep all of my tanks around 80-83 .. I find a bit warmer temps keeps their appetites up!

[J-P]

I have not used a heater in well over 20 years now, other than in my water aging vessels. If anything I would need chillers, but they dump so much heat into the area that their effect is negligible, and their power use is high. They are not very efficient units.

You profile reads "East Coast USA" ... how do you get away without heaters? My home is set at 71F and right now my ambiant room temp the tank is in is hovering in the 66F range. Even maintaining 71F costs me over $300 per month (and I would really like 73F).

[riggers]

If the temperature is cooler their metabolism slows down so they will eat less, raise it and they need more energy.

[pufferpuggirl]

Well I suppose that's why I try to keep mine between 74 and 80F, I've upped the heaters a little and now it seems I'm hovering around 76.5-77F.

[Lil' Swimz$]

I'd like to raise mine up, but its the highest it can go.

[RTR]

I have not used a heater in well over 20 years now, other than in my water aging vessels. If anything I would need chillers, but they dump so much heat into the area that their effect is negligible, and their power use is high. They are not very efficient units.

You profile reads "East Coast USA" ... how do you get away without heaters? My home is set at 71F and right now my ambiant room temp the tank is in is hovering in the 66F range. Even maintaining 71F costs me over $300 per month (and I would really like 73F).

Our house is set for 74F in summer,73F winter. It is super-insulated, partial solar, and fairly tight. It is also on a low ridge with high winds. The tank room is small (8' x 14+'),and has >500 gallons of tanks in it ATM, plus additional vessels for aging ~150 gallons of water at tank temperature. All tanks are multi-filtered, the large majority are planted, so have ~2WPG(US) of NO fluorescents going 8-12hours per day. Lots of waste heat is generated in there - it helps in the winter, hurts in the summer. The tanks out in the living areas are all planted, and all multi-filtered. They run about the same temperatures as do those in the tank room - when you have 2-5 filters per tank, many with sumps/refugia, you have a lot of waste heat to dispose of. In spring and fall, we have to dump (air exchangers) the extra solar gain to keep the house temperatures down to comfortable levels. The house would otherwise go above 80F, and the tanks 4-6 degrees above that - way too hot for most fish. Or we would have to turn on the AC - ridiculous in March! We should have added more thermal mass to the house initially, but did not foresee the requirement as being as much as it is- we get more gain than was predicted by the best projections during planning

Even without the partial solar, the tanks would run warm due to the lighting and filtration. It is the only way I operate tanks. I am both spoiled and stubborn. If I can't do it the way I see as best, I won't do it at all. That is why I cannot keep goldfish anymore - my house is too warm. I am older than most folk here, and have some health issues that make impractical to run the house itself cooler. This was designed to be our retirement home, and is for me - my wife will be retiring soon as well. her musical instruments are less upkeep than my tanks.

[OCgatergal]

76-80. In the summer it went to 85 so I had to due the ice cubes in a bag in the filter trick (im not paying 300 for a chiller) My betta tank had serious problems in the summer getting to 90+ The ice cube think didn't work at all, but he's still alive after all that (yes he was in the shade and the lights were off)

[Myaj]

Fish are cold blooded animals, the cooler the temps, the slower their metabolism.

That said, some species like it cooler, some like it warmer. I've found none of my current puffers like it below 75, they tend to just hide and their appetites drop quite a bit. I don't like to go much over 78-80 though if I can help it.

[rengnath]

I keep mine at 81 degrees. I set it there when I found on websites that GSPs range from 78-84, so I set the heater at an approximate setting and 81 is what it came out to be. I havent changed it since.

[Puffdaddyuk]

I keep My Mbu around 25/26oC or 75/79oF

[DarkStorm]

80-83