Post pictures of your beloved catfish aquaria here. Also good for pictures of your (cat)fish rooms or equipment discussions. If you are posting pictures of identified catfish, please do so in the appropriate husbandry and reproduction forum above.
Trial
I have been trialing using a heat mat idea with two 5 litre glass containers, each is 12x8 inches and 5cm of water they have been running for about 5 hours and have maintained a temperature of 26 degrees I have supported the mat on slices of polystyrene tile to allow air to pass underneath, this is to allow heat to pass down and prevent overheating. The containers are currently unaerated and I am expecting the movement and aeration to bring the temp down slightly. I have just added an airstone to one to see how it is affected.- Control experiment ( its the science teacher in me)
I am using the idea for hatching and raising cory fry, obviously the standard two 50% water changes per day are going on as well and it is only intended to take the fry to about 6 weeks
I think so far this is a success but I am interested on your views before i add the fry.
Should you have to be away from home for any length of time, I'd at least partially cover them to cut down on evaporation losses.
I've used shallow glass trays like this on numerous occasions, they work really well but you either need to be there every day or have someone else competent around to maintain them (as I've found to my cost in the past). It's not that there's a risk of drying up, but the increased concentration of dissolved solids could cause problems. I would definitely use an airstone, or a bare airline set just enough so that there is surface agitation.
Thanks for the response, I wasnt sure if I had put the thread in the right forum. I have airstones in all, the only reason there wasnt one in the photo is i was testing the effect of the aggitation on water losses and temperature. I can both all day yesterday and throught the night and the one with aeration held 26 degree whilst the one with no aeration held 28. I have set them up properly know and the fry are in place and happy. I will consider the evapouration issue. I dont do holidays really but it maybe worth making some perspex covers anyway.
Thanks again
