Well I read accounts online of owners seeing their Striped Raph Cats going into their heaters and didn't think much of it...I woke up this morning and looked for mine to be hiding around the roots of a plant or in the PVC and well, the last place I looked was my heater, where I saw thier little tales stick out. They seem to be okay but I'd really rather not have them in there..
It's a Rena Smartheater 100. Anyone think it wouldn't be safe to silicone some vinyl screen over the top vent hole? Why the hell is it open anyway -.-
There'll probably come a day soon when the cats will think they can still fit and try and stuff their fatasses in head first and realize there's a problem later..Not even really sure if it produces enough heat to be a real threat to the actual fish. I know they're alive but..
raphaels need a tight hiding place... very tight... my friend has a hue one in his tank and we only see it about once every 4 months... he finds his way under the heavy lace rock...
You can't see it in the photo (of freaking course) but the opening is directly behind the thermostat knob. It's a hollow shaft that runs the height of the heater down to the caged bottom which fortunately IS visible. They obviously wouldn't be able to enter through the bottom so I was thinking a 1" square/round patch of vinyl screen siliconed to the top would do the trick.
I guess Rena thought it would be safter to make the heating surface inside the shaft not accounting for Raphaels apparently. lol I never had a problem with kuhli's doing this in my other tank. They just hang around in my amazon sword.
It's actually a nice idea, theoretically the heated water inside the shaft would draw cold water in from the bottom and cause it to rise as it heats drawing more water in, I guess.
I guess the question I really wanted an answer to is...common vinyl/plastic screen safe for the aquarium? I don't see why it wouldn't be but then its not a risk I'm willing to take. I already know most forms of silicone are.
I'm going to get some more PVC and coat it with silicone and layer with substrate. Seems like a neat idea. They should be more than happy with 1-1.5" PVC for now.
FYI: Hot glue and a small piece of vinyl/plastic screen cut to the opening did the trick...just in case anyone else out there happened to have this combo of fish and heater. lol
Luckily the screen apparently did nothing to the water.
Sadly I went against my own advice and didn't research the cats before I bought them...according to Petsmart they reach a max of 4" (still it was stupid of me to get 3 because they're apparently not dependant on each other) turns out they can reach 6" and slightly more. I guess I'm going to have to return at least 2 or bring them somewhere else where the sellers don't lie about their max size...and I'm gonna have to do it soon before their spines get too long and get stuck when I net them -.-
