No heater needed?

[Rumor]

A friend just offered me a 10 gal tank he no longer uses, it has a filter and lights but no heater, Are there any fish out there that like a cool tank and stay small that would be good for this setup?

 

[jsoong]

How warm is your house? If you keep the temp at 75+, you can have wider choice of fish. <Or just spend the $15 to get a small heater.>

Small cool water fish = white cloud mountain minnows. Small & relatively undemanding.

 

[JohnPaul]

There are plenty of fish that like cooler (i.e. room temperature) water. Among the ones that stay small enough for a 10g tank would include the Zebra Danio, White Cloud Mountain Minnow, even the all-popular Guppy could work in a room temperature setup though if you have both males & females then pretty soon you will be overrun with more babies than a 10g tank could possibly hold.

Another less common option would be killifish. Many species of killies are quite happy at room temperature, they are hardy fish and among the most stunningly colorful freshwater fish in existence. Unfortunately very few pet stores sell killies, but if there is a local aquarium club near you almost certainly some of the people there would have them. Or else you can get them from breeders online; Aquabid always has tons of killifish auctions going at any given time.

Those are just a few ideas, nowhere near a complete list. No doubt others will chime in here as well.

(Of course, the other option is to simply buy a heater for your tank.)

 

[adeebm]

You can get a heater for $10 at petsmart. That's not much more than what fish are going to cost you. I wouldn't take the chance without one, incase you turn off heating or it gets really cold in winter.

--Adeeb

 

[jeremyblevins]

well i have no heater and my tank is sitting at 79.5 right now but i also live in Florida i would imagine it'd be colder in Canada.

 

[Rumor]

Well the room is pretty well regulated for heat most of the year, as for Petsmart, we have one here I was there last weekend and the cheapest heater they had was 40$, I think they jack the prices up around here as we have few options.
Has anyone bought fish online?I was considering it but it worries me what condition that will be in after shipping....how does shipping fish even work?

 

[jsoong]

Where are you in Canada?
BigAl's has the Visitherms at ~$16:
Marineland Visi-Therm Submersible Heater - 100 Watt - Heaters - Submersible Heaters at BigalsOnline

And I bought my heaters for around the same price at PetSmart a few years ago.

If you use a setback thermostat, then the temp won't be stable enough in the winter for many of the sub-tropical fish. <I have a heater for my goldfish because I set my temp to 17C at night.>

As for shipping live fish, be careful about shipping across the border ... Canada customs can delay things enough to cause trouble. <People who ship live fish - the lfs, eg - go to the airport to pick up the fish personally & clear customs there to avoid delays.> There are lfs & people from Canada that will ship fish, however. You are pretty safe doing an overnight courier in the summer. <OTOH - unless you are looking at exotic/show fish, it is not worth the courier cost .... It is simpler to buy locally. You can also ask some lfs to order fish for you as well.>

 

[JohnPaul]

Anytime you are shipping something living across a border, customs is always a concern. If you can find Canadian places to buy fish online, you should be fine. Typically the fish are sent overnight delivery, as long as you are there when the delivery comes you should be okay. Actually a lot of fish can be safely shipping using a more standard (2-3 day delivery), in the USA it's called Priority Mail. Not sure what the Canadian equivalent would be.

If you aren't happy with your local shops and you can't find any good Canadian online stores, then if you know exactly what you want you can try Aquabid. Often there are a lot of Canadians on there and usually their auctions are marked as "Ships to Canada Only" or whatever.

 

[patola_l]

id always have heater no matter what, without one my tank would be usually constant, but where i live there is always that one really cold day that im glad my heater is in there