rice fish love the heater

[CT_]

What are these guys doing?  They really like the heater.  I'd guess they are cold but the water temp is 71 hardly cold for them.  Any guesses why they're like this?  They don't even leave when the feeder goes.

 

[Flumpweesel]

It's there much cover for them in the tank they might be nervous and responding to their reflections.  

Fish do like to be warm (koi bask in the sunshine) they can also associate heat with food in there wild more algae where the sun hits kinda thing.

Because you have the heater next to your filter is the warm circulating properly I have the heater at the opposite end of my tank to reduce temp difference across the tank.

[CT_]

I put the heater there so it's near maximum circulation though it just has the one filter.  I have a few plants in there too. I have some photos here.

 

The photo in my top post was from above so the heater looks shiny but face on it's a regular glass heater so I don't think they see reflections.  

I wonder if they really would rather just be warmer.  Maybe I could make a matten style filter and put the heater behind so they can't huddle there.  I'm mostly just worried they'd rather hang out there than eat.