i was just wandering if my oscar's water need a heater? I have had oscar for about a year now and i have not put a heater in it yet and he seems to be fine with it but i dont want him to get too cold. Its a 75 gallon tank and it seems to be alil on the chilly side.

I know that oscar like warmer water, I run my 500 litre tank on 2 x 300 watt heaters, this keeps the water at 26.5 degrees, my oscars become a bit grumpy when I do a water change and the temprature drops to 22 degrees

Defnitly recommend getting a heater.a few years ago when i was still staying in south africa on the coast i didnt use a heater at all during the summer but switched it on during winter time,in saying that the average tempreture on the coast of Richards bay in the summer is 35deg c' and sumtimes even hotter.

fluctuations in temp could cause all sorts of parisites.
spend a bit of coin and invest in a good quality heater that will keep yr temp around the 26deg C' mark.

hope this helps.

A perfect temperature would be between 26°C and 28°C, in my opinion. Oscars are actually okay down to 21°C, however, some other fish don't like it that cold so you have to be very careful. When I set my big tank up, I couldn't get the temperature any higher than 21°C and I just thought that I needed to add a couple more heaters. It actually turned out that both heaters had shattered and weren't working at all. One of my green Severums develop white spot and I think it was probably due to the fact that the water was too cold for it. As soon as the temperature went up considerably, the white spot disappeared straightaway

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Sudden drops in temperature are not the best thing for fish. I assume you are refilling with cold water. Try to refill with water a similar temperature to the tank temperature. I use a housepipe connected to a mixer tap so the temperature of the new water is similar to the tank water. You can buy adapters for connecting hosepipe to mixer taps

I keep my oscars at 27c/80f

I keep the fish in my Oscar tank at about 24/25C but it sure depends if there are any other fish that need a higher temp, as the others said already.

Slowly adding water that is *slightly* cooler isn't all that bad, but it shouldn't be too much of a difference. Never add warmer water though.

If you get a heater, the adjustable ones are way better in my opinion. There are also some available with heater guards on them already - to be on the real safe side, since Oscars have been known for destroying heaters.

IME oscars love breaking heaters so a heater guard or buying a steel heater is thee way to go.

Sudden fluctuations in temp can cause iich and other health probs.

HTHS

That is the beauty of a sump filter, all heaters go in it and nothing inside your actual tank

metoo wrote:


I have to disagree here. I thought it was better to add slightly warmer water than slightly colder water, not loads warmer tho. Anyone else got an opinion on this

i boil all my water in a huge pot wait for it to cool down and add it to the tanks once the temp is between 25deg c & 28deg C.

its lots of work but my fish stay happy

i usually boil water and mix it with cold water so the temperature doesnt drop to much . keeping the water at 27 degrees seems to work for me

delboybully wrote:


Hm strange, lol. As I knew it, it's because warm water can hold less oxygen (or whatever gas it was now) than cold water, and when the temp rises suddenly, the excess oxygen can lead to gas bubble disease. Thinking though that a tad colder or warmer probably won't matter at all. I'm just a bit paranoid about it since stupid me added warmer water (but a lot warmer) accidentally to a small tank beginning of this year and lost my adopted angelfish due to that. That was so not nice, after some days it looked like the eyes would explode in the very next moment, and nothing helped
Another thing is that if anyone has old copper pipes in the house still, the warmer water will dissolve some of that. Water conditioners take care of that though, I think.

Sorry, I'm not "anyone else" now, but this is interesting to me. I'm definitely open to learning new things.