Well, i live in tropics. It does get cold occasionally (nowhere near euro or north america cold). The temp range in the capital city is around 17-40C.
Yes, i am aware that arapaimas are tropical amazonian fishes but there are plenty of people in my country and Thailand who keep them without heaters. In fact, no one has a pool heater for their ponds. My neighbor is the closest example that i can provide and his paimas are 2m if not more.
My three paimas were more than 2' each one close to 90cm already. i had them for less than a year... and now i have no paimas no more
At the begining of the winter the water temp when i measured it - was around 22C so i did not make much of it since the paimas were still active and eating if somewhat faded in color. RTC were not affected. Around January we really had cold weather and i was away from home - when i got back the water temp was 16.8C the paimas looked unhappy and pale. I zipped over to my neighbors and his were fine so i thought i would try out and test without heaters. When one paima died i have put around 2500W worth of heating into the set-up. It was a heartbreaking moment to watch a second paima die right in front of my eyes. The third one died couple of days later. The temp was going up quite slowly at around 1C per day.
The RTCs and gars have seen this type of winters before without heating. RTCs just become inactive. Aligator gars do not seem to be bothered by the cold weather (possibly due to their north american origins?). Marble pim also was sluggish at 16C.
The RTCs and pim became active and started eating again at around 20C.
This year i will attempt paimas again once the temp goes up in spring. I was looking forward to having my monster paimas
Yes, i am aware that arapaimas are tropical amazonian fishes but there are plenty of people in my country and Thailand who keep them without heaters. In fact, no one has a pool heater for their ponds. My neighbor is the closest example that i can provide and his paimas are 2m if not more.
My three paimas were more than 2' each one close to 90cm already. i had them for less than a year... and now i have no paimas no more
At the begining of the winter the water temp when i measured it - was around 22C so i did not make much of it since the paimas were still active and eating if somewhat faded in color. RTC were not affected. Around January we really had cold weather and i was away from home - when i got back the water temp was 16.8C the paimas looked unhappy and pale. I zipped over to my neighbors and his were fine so i thought i would try out and test without heaters. When one paima died i have put around 2500W worth of heating into the set-up. It was a heartbreaking moment to watch a second paima die right in front of my eyes. The third one died couple of days later. The temp was going up quite slowly at around 1C per day.
The RTCs and gars have seen this type of winters before without heating. RTCs just become inactive. Aligator gars do not seem to be bothered by the cold weather (possibly due to their north american origins?). Marble pim also was sluggish at 16C.
The RTCs and pim became active and started eating again at around 20C.
This year i will attempt paimas again once the temp goes up in spring. I was looking forward to having my monster paimas
That's terrible! So sorry m8.
R.I.P