Trout keeping

Hello, this is my 1st thread on here. I was wondering about the temperature requirements of each trout species and if they could be in 72 degrees? Also I was wondering since rainbow trout are one of the natives in my area, why do they still need (from what ive heard) cold water if they can not survive in temps of 75-80 since that is the temp around here.
Also my aquarium is 72 degrees this week. It only gets about 78 for about an hour or less. i could use a fan, but my aquarium has a lid on it...

Brown trout are rumored to handle higher temps, but I would bet that hatchery produced rainbows could handle higher.

72 degrees long term is not going to work well with trout of any species. Your local trout, if they are from a viable population are probably living in streams fed from mountain runoff. The water stays cool enough. They are surely not found in lowland, warm, sluggish streams.

A fan will not cool an aquarium at all. All that a fan does is move air, it does not cool. We feel a cooling effect from fans because they push air that is cooler than 98.6 against our bodies, and also evaporate our sweat, which can cool our bodies. But if you had two gallon jugs of water, and blew a fan at one, and not at the other, they would both be nearly identical in temperature.

You could give it a try, but I would not expect positive results unless you could maintain temperatures in the lower 60's. You could do this with the aid of a chiller. Very few keep trout, due to the expense of purchasing, and running a chiller.

The reason trout can survive in 80 degree weather is that the water usually has a high oxygen content, swift flow, and spring-fed or snow-melt temperatures much lower than the air's temperature. Most trout are happy form 50 degrees up to 65, with notable exceptions. California has wierd laws on fish keeping, dont they?

(edit: mistyped, meant weather, not water)

Edited by Gavinswildlife, 13 November 2013 - 08:54 PM.

The reason trout can survive in 80 degree water is that the water usually has a high oxygen content, swift flow, and spring-fed or snow-melt temperatures much lower than the air's temperature. Most trout are happy form 50 degrees up to 65, with notable exceptions. California has wierd laws on fish keeping, dont they?

80 degree water cannot hold enough O2 for trout survival for any length of time. This just does not happen.

yes, california has wierd laws, but i have the list of illigal fish and trout are legal exept atlantic salmon. I could add bubblers. I have about 2 bubblers already. Also thank you for your posts. I just thought it was wierd that they live here. Also the rivers, strams, etc. go all the way to the ocean. I also found someone who caught a lake trout in a lake here. If hatchery rainbow trout could live in higher temps, what temps would they be? The law here in california is that people can not take fish from any water source. In other words, It can not be wild from california.

Edited by Leo1234, 13 November 2013 - 09:01 PM.

80 degree water cannot hold enough O2 for trout survival for any length of time. This just does not happen.

Sorry, Meant weather, not water.

What is your setup? Also, there are some pretty interesting diy setups as makeshift chillers.

If hatchery rainbow trout could live in higher temps, what temps would they be?

I could not give you an honest answer. When they are stocked locally, it is called "put and take" They stock them in lakes and streams, anglers catch them, and in our lowland waters, any that have avoided a hook usually die in July.

Sorry, Meant weather, not water.

What is your setup? Also, there are some pretty interesting diy setups as makeshift chillers.

I don't keep trout, if I did I would build a chiller, and set up a long shallow stream tank with lots of flow. I am just a guy who fly fishes for them, and has spent a great deal of time self educating. Being from Ohio, you probably know that we do have a native population of brook trout in the Chagrin drainage, the area where they are found is rich with ground water. Also ODNR stocks a few streams with brown trout. Mad river, clear fork of the Mohican, and clear creek. Clear creek is a waste of time and resources. Clear fork and the Mad are both cold enough to hold trout year around. The Mad does have a small degree of natural reproduction. Otherwise the state stocks various reservoirs with "put and take" rainbows. I used to fish the Mad quite a bit, and did pretty well, most of the fish are small, but apparently there are some very large hold overs in the lower reaches. I have never caught anything much bigger than14-15 inches, but I mostly fished the upper part of the river. I like smaller streams. More intimate.

I have a 55 gallon, but will soon get a 150-200 gallon aquarium. The problem is that chillers are too expensive for me to buy right now. I wish i could keep any trout. And if you kept a rainbow trout, Is there a way to keep it in its small stream form? I know rainbows get big unless they are in a stream.

Build a chiller. I am sure you can find some plans on line. Before I did anything, I would head out and angle a few. If I was in California, you could not keep me off the Little Kern river. Golden trout! I have not done it myself, but know from experience that generally the smaller the stream, the smaller the trout. So a nice cold aquarium with limited feeding, and I am certain that you could keep your trout in the 5-10 inch range. Trout from small, low fertility, headwater streams stay small because of minimal feeding opportunities. Duplicate that. If you start throwing in hands full of of aquaculture pellets, they will grow large quickly.

Brown trout are rumored to handle higher temps, but I would bet that hatchery produced rainbows could handle higher.
...
A fan will not cool an aquarium at all. All that a fan does is move air, it does not cool. We feel a cooling effect from fans because they push air that is cooler than 98.6 against our bodies, and also evaporate our sweat, which can cool our bodies. But if you had two gallon jugs of water, and blew a fan at one, and not at the other, they would both be nearly identical in temperature.

Hatchery rainbows will indeed survive in higher temps - quite possibly even the 78-80 range if very great care is taken. I've some in my care for a few months at a time, and given that we only require them for about a week, we don't put much effort into cooling them after that point. They definitely don't like it that hot though. They stress at the drop of a hat that way, and if you drop a bucket of ice into a tank that warm, they will swim right over to it and park themselves there. Every time.

A fan will cool an aquarium, provided you blow it across the open top of a tank so that it evaporates the water, same as sweat evaporating. At best, this only cools it a degree or two though, and even then only really in tanks 10g and smaller. The temperature change, if there even was one, in something big enough to hold trout would be negligible, and certainly not useful.

Some rainbow trout (Shasta strain if memory serves) can survive temperatures as high as 71, maybe 72. Growth slows greatly and they become very vulnerable to any other stressors. Death by further increases results not from inadequate oxygen but rather the heat itself. You can supersaturate the water with pure oxygen but temperature in the 78-80 F range will effectively cook them. Even getting them to survive up to 71-72 F range must be done with slow acclimation. I keep rainbows in the range of 57 -58 F using well water which is similar to that targeted by hatcheries in my area. During summer in the lower reaches of spring fed raceways the temperature can get up into the middle 60's resulting in some not very happy rainbow trout.

Keep chubs and pretend they are trout.

Leo, I don't want to be a Debbie Downer but my opinion on the subject is not to keep trout if you cannot provide the specific habitat requirement for the species. It is not fair to keep a fish in an environment that they might survive in, but not thrive. It's no different than keeping many large fish in a small tank.

I think others have done a good job expressing that trout are a cold water species that can occasionally be found in warmer waters (between 60 and 70 degrees) but that they do not do well or even survive long term. I can appreciate your desire to attempt keeping trout but it does not seem that it would be in their best interest if you're unable to chill the water to ~60F at a minimum IMO.

We could certainly provide you with some suggestions for chillers if that is something that interests you in order to keep trout.

For sustained keeping in NE Ohio home, you may be able to get away with keeping aquarium directly contacting concrete floor in basement. Location will need to be well away from any heat source and will likely deny use of bright light source over tank.

Some streams have groundwater seeps (small springs) that you can't see, but that provide small thermal refugia from both summer heat and winter cold. These refugia allow fish and salamanders to persist in streams that appear to be too warm in summer (or too cold in winter) based on temperature measurements taken outside the seep. They can move around the stream to feed for short periods in temperatures that would be lethal long-term, then go back to their seeps to cool off or warm up, as needed. Loss of those groundwater seeps (by development, well pumping, etc) results in loss of seep-dependent species. Aquatic plant beds are often in seeps too, where nutrients are more available.

Some streams have groundwater seeps (small springs) that you can't see, but that provide small thermal refugia from both summer heat and winter cold. These refugia allow fish and salamanders to persist in streams that appear to be too warm in summer (or too cold in winter) based on temperature measurements taken outside the seep. They can move around the stream to feed for short periods in temperatures that would be lethal long-term, then go back to their seeps to cool off or warm up, as needed. Loss of those groundwater seeps (by development, well pumping, etc) results in loss of seep-dependent species. Aquatic plant beds are often in seeps too, where nutrients are more available.

Wonderful points, Gerald. I didn't begin to think about microhabitats, such as spring seeps, until hearing a talk by farmertodd. If I remember correctly, he was explaining habitat partitioning by several darter species in the Ohio River drainage and talked about groundwater seeps in riffles that seemed to attract spotted darter (Etheostoma maculatum). It's been a few years, so perhaps I'm not remembering the species correctly.

To get back to the question about trout temperatures...I kept brook, brown, and rainbow trout in a 5,000 gallon aquarium for 3 years. I kept the aquarium temperature between 55*F and 65*F constantly. These cool temperatures were maintained through the use of a very large, very expensive chiller. On the rare occasions in which the chiller malfunctioned, and water temperatures exceeded 70*F, I could count on trout mortality. The mortality would not be immediate, but instead the fish would slowly start to show signs of stress in the weeks following the exposure to the warm temperatures.

by the way, I am not getting a trout until i get a chiller. That is why i have stopped responding. I just thought that since rainbow trout are native all over California and other west coast states to south of the border that they would have to survive the lowland temps if we also have steelheads.

Some streams have groundwater seeps (small springs) that you can't see, but that provide small thermal refugia from both summer heat and winter cold. These refugia allow fish and salamanders to persist in streams that appear to be too warm in summer (or too cold in winter) based on temperature measurements taken outside the seep. They can move around the stream to feed for short periods in temperatures that would be lethal long-term, then go back to their seeps to cool off or warm up, as needed. Loss of those groundwater seeps (by development, well pumping, etc) results in loss of seep-dependent species. Aquatic plant beds are often in seeps too, where nutrients are more available.

Sometimes it is more than seeps although they very prevalent here where we have so many springs. You can also have stratification in shaded areas where the hyporheic flow is shielded from local atmospheric conditions. The largely hyporheic part of flow behaves very much like a seep although former is more vulnerable to lack of riparian vegetation or other forms of shade. When it comes to trout in the lowlands of California, how much of that is due to fish simply moving through on spawning runs but otherwise avoiding such areas during the heat of summer?

I've kept trout. Added a commercial lobster tank chiller to the pump system.
Could bring the tank down to 45 degrees in the winter.

I've heard of tiger trout handle high temperatures slightly better than most browns and bows but I don't know if it is true....probably with a help from hybrid vigor. That said we often get few deaths in shallow trout lakes where the trout was stocked.