Hi all, first post to the forum. I already used the search and found a lot of info but wanted to ask about my specific situation just to gather everyone's thoughts and experiences on this. Sorry in advance for the long winded question. I've recently started switching over to coldwater species to get away from using heaters. I'm successfully keeping bloodfin tetras, mettalic gold barbs, neon rosy barbs, yellow tiger endlers, and orange ramshorn snails in a heavily planted 40 breeder, long term, at my room temps. I'm also in the process of letting my planted 72 bowfront grow back in after a reset, but it's pretty heavily planted already, and I've had 13 longfin zebra danios and a bushynose pleco in there for a while now, all doing fantastically. I finally found some variatus platies here locally and was able to get 1 male, 4 females, of the black red tail variety. My question is this. We normally keep our house around 65-68 degrees in the winter, but it can dip into the upper 50s if the heater gets left off. I know maculatus will not do well at all in the 60's, but I saw a response from Cory saying his outdoor variatus once got down around 58 before he got worried and brought them inside. What are your thoughts on ideal temps for them, versus bare minimums? Upper 60's ok, or should I shoot more for low 70's? What temps are safest, and when will they stop breeding? I've already ordered a 100 watt coop heater, in the thinking that it will be large enough to keep me in the low 70's, even though conventional thinking would say it's undersized, and keep a safe buffer in the winter for the platies. I do have full coverage lids on the tank. Do you guys think I need it at all, or should I just keep it as a backup? Will the extra bump in heat help my plants grow quicker, and cause the platies to breed more? Also, will the danios eat up the fry? Let me know your thoughts on all this. Thanks.
