7 replies to this topic

[guypain]

Hello there this summer i was able to find a strain of enneacanthus gloriosus. I live near toulouse in sw france and was wondering wether i could keep these guys outdoors during whole winter. The temps go down to 4/5 degrees celsius from mid january to mid february. I keep them with e. Chaetodon but e.gloriosus is supposed to endure as low as 10C whereas e.chaetodon could go down to 4C (fishbase) What do you think? Anyone already experienced this before?
Regards.

[Michael Wolfe]

How are you keeping them outside? In a pond? In a container sunk in the ground? Is the container deep? Is it touching the ground?

I keep bluespotteds outside, but I live in the southern USA. I get a week where there is ice on the 100 gallon containers that I use. But since they are sort of deep and on the ground (and no circulation, that is important) the water at the bottom is not as low as the air temp. Maybe 10c even when the air is -5c. They do fine and breed in the 100 gallon tanks.

[guypain]

Hi and thanks for your reply.

I keep them in a 1000 liters rainwater tank off ground placed on a pallet and insulated on the sides with polystyrene (see picture).

I also have a 5000 liters pond with other fishes sunk in the ground but it doesn't matter the depth (32 inches deep) the water still goes down to 4/5 C for about a month or so, but warms up during the the day as we don't get much freezing, so it's not all week long at 4°C

I also cover the pond and so will be the tank for its first winter with plexyglass.

In my pond i keep all year round some shiners : notropis chrosomus, cyprinella lutrensis and chrosomus erythrogaster.

As you can see i would not make a great difference wether sunk or not in the ground.

 

 

 

Edited by guypain, 09 October 2019 - 02:04 PM.

[Matt DeLaVega]

Cool setup. I bet the insulation is a great help in evening out the temperature swings.

[Michael Wolfe]

I like your setup and I think it will work fir the Enneacanthus. I would definitely try a few fish outside this fall and winter. Feed them well before they go out. But dont feed them once they are outside. Those plants and no pump should work well for you.

[guypain]

Theyve outside since mid july, i think im going to fish some adults and fry (kept apart) and over winter in my unheated tank (300 liters) located in my garage with some fundulus zebrinus

[Michael Wolfe]

if you can have some inside and some outside, I think you should do that... prove to yourself that your fish can live outside... I think they will, especially if they been outside all summer fattening up on live foods.

[guypain]

Hi some update, i finally put a 300 watts heater in the outiside tank because i didn't have enough free room inside or too many fishes

Everyone's fine the current water temps fluctuate from 16°C to 18°C when it's 5°C in the moring to 12°C in the evening.

The winter has not arrived yet, it's gonna be much colder from mid-january, then i'll unplug the heater at the beginnig of march to have a real cool down period without the risk of losing my strains.