Cool water aquarium fish

[J-P]

what about an invert tank?

10g is not a lot to work with. That is the bane of tanks... limiting it to temperate conditions only compounds that.

Native species are a good thought but they do live in large bodies of water that cool and heat much slower than a 10g uninsulated.

 

[SubRosa]

A group of 4 or 5 Black Skirt Tetras if you go with the 10.

 

[kelly82]

what is her reason for not having a heater? if it is to do with electrical safetly surely she wont be filtering the tank either? just a thought.

 

[Denj]

Thanks for the additional suggestions guys.

AnythingShiny - thanks for suggesting Rosy Red Minnows, I've seen them @ my LFS before but I always just considered them "feeder fish" & I didn't know they were a cold water fish at that (I didn't even know what they were called). But I'll look into them just the same because they do look like goldfish but stay much smaller so thanks again.

I'm trying to convince her into getting a 20g, especially since she is now kind of leaning towards a paradise fish. We'll see how it goes; at the end of the day it's her call not mine.

kelly82 - Your assumption is correct, the reason for no heater is due to a "electrical safety issue", but not quite how you think. She can have electrical items but she is limited to one item per outlet (absolutely no extension cords or outlet extensions) & being as she has two outlets available for use on her aquarium set up she wants to use one for a filter & the other for a light (for display purposes). So she's decided to eschew the heater & go with cold water species.

 

[colleen0309]

What about unplugging the light at night and weekends and plugging in a heater? She won't need the light then and the fish will benefit from the heat.

Thanks for the additional suggestions guys.

AnythingShiny - thanks for suggesting Rosy Red Minnows, I've seen them @ my LFS before but I always just considered them "feeder fish" & I didn't know they were a cold water fish at that (I didn't even know what they were called). But I'll look into them just the same because they do look like goldfish but stay much smaller so thanks again.

I'm trying to convince her into getting a 20g, especially since she is now kind of leaning towards a paradise fish. We'll see how it goes; at the end of the day it's her call not mine.

kelly82 - Your assumption is correct, the reason for no heater is due to a "electrical safety issue", but not quite how you think. She can have electrical items but she is limited to one item per outlet (absolutely no extension cords or outlet extensions) & being as she has two outlets available for use on her aquarium set up she wants to use one for a filter & the other for a light (for display purposes). So she's decided to eschew the heater & go with cold water species.

 

[Denj]

What about unplugging the light at night and weekends and plugging in a heater? She won't need the light then and the fish will benefit from the heat.

Good idea colleen, I thought of that as well; but the thing is that it's a shared classroom, so she doesn't always close it up prior to the weekends. As a result she'd prefer something that is not highly prone to a simple human error. She doesn't want to come back to a dead, dieing, sick, or stressed out fish because either she or someone else forgot to make the switch from light to heater prior to leaving for the weekend. Otherwise she has no problem performing a weekly WC (I'm giving her an extra siphon with a hand pump I have laying around to make her life easier) & testing the water (I'm also giving her a piece of one of my sponge filters colonized with BB to make her tank cycle faster & safely).

 

[J-P]

a small snake?

 

[Dr. Awkward]

Fancy guppies can handle temperatures down to the low 60s. Wild guppies can go down to around 50 degrees.

 

[kelly82]

i agree with the guppy idea, ive kept them in outdoor ponds here in the uk, and ive never heated a guppy tank, all have thrived

 

[frigginchi]

Here is a place to get some native species.

http://zimmermansfish.com/Price.html