PlanetCatfish.com

for those of you not in the the UK - we have had a recent british heat wave (for about a week). the temp got up to about 38C in london and as i live in a loft apartment, the sun beats down on the roof 24/7.
Unfortunately due to the rise in temp outside, the temp inside caused my 170ltr tank to rocket up to 94F!!!! in which i lost my breeding pair of Twig catfish and 2 of a shoal of praecox rainbows.

Although the rest of my catfish population showed no effects:
Zebra plec
Candy striped plec
2 x gold spot ancistris
6 x corydoras agassizii
Why was this? are twig catfish of a cooler region? how do i stop it happening again?
thanks - Mat

Most of our tanks went up to 86+. We just increased the aeration and kept a close check of the water quality. If we get high temps again a frozen bottle of water, floating on the tank can help things keep cool. But be careful you dont want to chill them too much.

Sorry about your misfortune bro. Looks like this heat wave is covering alot more ground than the UK. Its pretty bad here as well. On top of a drought. Reaking all kinds of havoc. Im sure you heard about the big power failure in the US and Canada, probibally those A/Cs churning away untill the grid couldnt handle it anymore. Wonder how many poor folks lost fish in that mess. As for saving your fish Ice, frequent cold water changes, or move north.

The power outage took out almost all of my favorite Chiloglaniswhile I was away in NYC. Manhattan without any lights is probably something you don't see often in one's lifetime, but I'd rather my Chiloglanis any day.
Just got back and still trying to assess the damage here. Bummer.

thanks for the suggestions guys, and im sure your problems with the power output were more serious.

I did think about the frozen bottle but i figured a constant temp of 90C+ with frequent water changes would be better than ups and downs of hot to normal. (Overnight and when im out etc)

Anyway things have returned to normal and now the reduction in temp has started the corys off. It shouldnt be long before im a proud dad!

Both my tanks have been over 32C for over 5 weeks, until last weekend thankfully it finally started to rain a bit and the tank temp dropped to to 27C. I did lose some fish, mostly Poeciliidae, but my catfish seem fine,I did a large waterchange when the temp started to drop and the Hoplosternum punctatum seem to respond well to that. Maybe I'll have young again in fall! . Still, I'm glad this heatwave has ended, and my fish seem to share to share this sentiment.

Pectorale

second that!
so far the bodycount is stuck at:
1 Mochokiella paynee (the biggest female, heat and old age....like 18 years at least)
2 Acanthopsis choirorhynchus
1 Botia striata
4 Betta unimaculata, two of wich tried to escape the heat by succesfully escaping the tank
1 Rasbora kalochroma
1 Labrochromis ishmaeli (heat in combination with BLOAT)

I'm very lucky the Tanganyikans still go OK....
Riftlakers often cope worse with heat than riverines, but

knock, knock (on wood)

So there are benefits to living in scotland. We had what we called heatwave, but it probabaly just took the ice off the top of the water. Nah, it did get pretty hot ( by our standards), but the tanks never went about 83 - 84.

rob

Such a shame so many people are loosing fish to this global heatwave. Lets hope it doesnt get any worse or we will all be buying chillers for our aquariums.

If it gets any worse, we'll be eating the fish from our tanks, drinking the tankwater and killing each other for sheer survival, I think.....

Don't think I'd get much feeding on a few zebra's and dicsus sandwhich