Mark in Vancouver wrote:I'm sorry, I was under the impression that your tank was heated for tropical, which I associate with 78 or more. If you provide the current, you might be able to keep them going - I cannot tell you what their limits are, and there are scores of different Schisturas, suited to different settings, found over a very large area.
My advice would still be to keep them in a cooler tank than that, and one with tons of round rocks on the bottom. The fish becomes interesting when it has somthing to do. And watching Schistura is pretty interesting if you're a loach weirdo like myself. Again, they make it known what their needs are.
Schisturas are really territorial, and keeping two is a bad idea. Keeping a little pack of them is the goal. Keeping one of them at a time in a setting that could be improved... Well...
No peer pressure from me. Keep loaches as you might, but I do think that a matter of degrees is a key aspect to their health. You should consider getting the loach new quarters, IMO.
Mark you make two key points here which kind of support and detract from the argument (discussion) at the same time. We cannot generalize about the natural temperatures that these fish experience. the problem is that we do not have access to temperature fluctuation data for their natural streams.
As you point out
Schistura as a family are extremely widespread over several different countries. Therefore, we can expect differences in mean temperature for given species. There are odd pieces of data around that give specifics on a given day of a species collection in some papers, but they only give data for that particular time.
My articles which have been updated since being originally written are in need of updating because they were only based upon information available at the time. They need updating again because we now know more. The influx of new blood to LOL in the past couple of years has brought us the on the ground information we so lacked before. People like Nonn Panitvong, Hendra Budiantano (sorry if I spelt that wrong Hendra...working from memory), Kamphol, etc have given us a greater understanding of these fishes natural habitats. I've cross-referenced names of collection sites mentioned by Dr Tan Heok Hui and Ng Heok Hee in various papers and managed to find quotes of other data in web sites giving temperatures of water at around 25C (77C)for countries like Brunei and Sarawak. Maybe Hendra can give us an idea on the temps that his fish were collected in?
My River-Tank this morning was at 79.4F....the other day it was down to 74.5F. It seldom goes lower. I actually believe through years of subjecting fish to varying temps like this that it is far more natural for them than a thermostatically controlled constant temperature and actually increases their resitance to changes that can bring disease outbreaks. I feel that particularly with fish that live in fast flowing, relatively high altitude streams their natural habitats can change rapidly with sudden high rainfall, consequential forest run off into the stream bringing debris and chemical changes. They're actually quite adaptable to it.
Schistura per se may not have such extreme oxygen requirements as the sucker-bodied species of hillstream, but providing them with higher than "normal" current is natural and beneficial. Above all creating a high current, multi rock hiding place rich environment in the tank will be as natural for them as is possible and this will hopefully bring about natural behavioural patterns as we should seek to acheive.
Those who keep River-Tanks now and maybe tried to keep Hillstreams in lesser conditions absolutely KNOW the difference it makes in fish behaviour and apparrent "happiness" of the various species they keep.
Big water-movement is the absolute primary consideration. The fish morphed into their unique forms for that very reason. Cooler than "average" temperatures are probably only more desirable for Chinese fish such as
Beaufortia kweichowensis and
Pseudogastromyzon species.
All
Gastromyzon, Sewellia, Neogastromyzon, etc are probably better off in the mid 70's F and will tolerate quite a bit higher IF they have good water movement causing the maximum possible oxygen availability. But I do believe that having the tanks unheated and warmed only by ambient air temperature and internal heat souces such as powerheads, can give natural but gradual changes from day to day and through the day. This is desirable and natural in my opinion.
Schisturas will also benefit from these variations. We have to remember that seasonal variations are what often trigger breeding in many types of fish. If we are going to crack that nut in aquaria, then change is inevitably going to be of benefit. Nature has few constants.
Martin.
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
