Cold water fish suggestions

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palaeodave
Posts: 1370
Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2006 5:25 am
Location: London/York

Cold water fish suggestions

Post by palaeodave » Sat Dec 18, 2010 1:12 pm

Hi all. I threw together a cold water tank a couple of months ago for some cold water river fish. The tank is currently holding around 15C although it'll probably go a bit higher in summer. Anyway, the rocks are getting a covering a biofilm and I was wondering if there were any fish people could think of that would be suitable who would graze on it. Garras and hillstream loaches I think probably have a slightly higher temperature range than I need in this tank, so I'm a little stumped.
"Science is a lot like sex. Sometimes something useful comes of it, but that’s not the reason we’re doing it" ー R Feynman

Diana
Posts: 4675
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2006 1:35 am
Location: Near San Franciso

Re: Cold water fish suggestions

Post by Diana » Sat Dec 18, 2010 2:22 pm

Well, you are probably looking at temperate zone fish, not tropicals.

The only site I know that can do a temperature search for you is planet catfish. Here are the results for 10*C min to 18*C max. I do not think any of these are algae eaters (Loricariads)

http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/se ... distr_id=0

Fish Base can do a search for fish from different countries, and then you would have to do some research to find out what they eat and what sort of temperature they live in. Here is one possible result, a North American native fish, though this one might get a bit too large...

http://www.fishbase.org/Country/Country ... 40&id=2975
38 tanks, 2 ponds over 4000 liters of water to keep clean and fresh.

Happy fish keeping!

Noto
Posts: 28
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2010 5:49 pm
Location: Tennessee

Re: Cold water fish suggestions

Post by Noto » Tue Jan 11, 2011 4:39 pm

Certain cyprinids will graze on aufwuchs, including species of Pimephales (fatheads, rosy reds) and Chrosomus (red-bellied dace). I don't know if you can get these in your country. They're not efficient cleaners like loricariids, but they keep it in check.

Probably your best option would be snails if they are compatible with your stock. If your fish eat thin-shelled species like physids and planorbids, try pleurocerids (freshwater periwinkles) or neritids.

Laura
Posts: 354
Joined: Mon May 08, 2006 11:30 pm
Location: Ottawa, ON, Canada

Re: Cold water fish suggestions

Post by Laura » Mon Jan 17, 2011 1:45 am

As already mentioned, the rosy reds would work and there is always white clouds - I think rosy reds are good to 10c or so. The challenge with them is that they've been treated as feeders, so they often aren't in great health when you get them.

They are colourful though.

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