Would a 1 litre glass bowl of water sitting in the same cold room temperature as a 4 litre glass bowl of water end up being colder or warmer?

1 litre of water would get warmer quicker than 4 litres in a warm room - this is why I am having difficulty figuring out the reverse. Wouldn't the increased volume of water make a difference to the coolness of the water?

I was given this little warm water fish - and he has two bowls. I've put him in the small one because it feels warmer, although he hates it and prefers the bigger bowl which is his Summer bowl.  But as these fish are susceptible to water temperatures, I thought the smaller bowl wouldn't get as cold because I always assumed - the deeper the water the cooler it got.

But I'll take your word for it though Muso and thanks.

I'm just trying to translate this, because even a couple of degrees can make a big difference.

Quote:


So if the water was a moderate temperature - it would maintain that temperature as long as there was only a small outlet open to allow less water to evaporate - excluding air currents & humidity of course.

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Does that mean the larger the body of water - depending on the room temperature, the more extreme (whether it be hot or cold) it will be? This is contradictory to what you first stated, so I've probably misunderstood "thermal inertia" which I had to look up.  

I'll put the little fish back in the big bowl and put some sort of cover over it to protect it from evaporation and hopefully he'll survive the Winter. By touch - the water in the larger bowl just seems so much colder.

Thanks Muso for your explanation. It was interesting, although a little challenging.   

I really don't think it will make much difference. For all intents and purposes the water will be the same temperature in both after a very short period of time. The effects I was talking about are very minimal.

Also if you have fish in there, don't go blocking the top or they'll die from lack of oxygen.

What s probably more critical is to make sure that you get rid of the chlorine, or you'll kill the fish. You can get drops for that from the pet shop.

Thanks for the tips - FD & Muso. I've had fish on and off for years, but I was given an unwanted Chinese fighting fish. I don't want to get into heaters at this stage as I've had them before & they break too easily. He's survived since the beginning of Summer - just wanted to see if I could get him to survive through winter.

There are plenty of plants in the tank for oxygen, but in the larger bowl he was up at the top all the time and barely moved in the cold mornings, whereas in the small bowl he hovers around the middle and seems a bit more active.

Why I asked about water temperatures is because the deeper you go into the sea - the colder it gets - whereas shallow water tends to stay more tepid. I thought the same might apply to smaller contained volumes of water.

Hi Mantra,

You've probably already done this but just in case

The Chinese/Siamese Fighting Fish, also known as the Betta are beautiful fish and can live up to 7 years if properly taken care of. However, most only survive 2-3 years because of the lack of care.


#1.


- Tank size: Absolute minimum is 1 gallon. The best size is 2.5 - 5 gallons
- Do NOT keep them with other Bettas or fish resembling the colorful betta
- Heater is needed to keep the tank at a stable temperature of 75-80 Farenheit
- A low current filter is needed for tanks 2.5 gallon and larger. Don't forget to cycle your tank beforehand
- For smaller tanks/bowls without a filter, change all of the water once weekly
- Make sure the water is dechlorinated (use bottled water or get a water conditioner)

#2.

- Do overfeed
- The do not variy the food to much or they get confused.
reats) weekly and betta pellets or flakes
- I highly recommend the Hikari brand
- Feed as much as your Betta will eat in two minutes, once daily
- Do not feed them one day of the week (except for a piece of a boiled pea) to clear their digestive systems


http://www.instructables.com/id/How_to_Properly_Care_for_a_Betta_Fish/





#3.

Watch your fish for any signs of diseases

If there are any signs of diseases, try to diagnose him and treat him immediately.
-------------------------------


They don't like being on their own put in another fish for company. Purchase your feed at the store and feed accordingly. Make sure you change the water and clean the fish bowl on a regular basis.

ANSWER

I have a beautiful peach one in my community tank and i have to disagree with what i have read here totally.

I have had a chinese fighting fish in my tank with success for many years and as long as you do not have them with fish like angel fish then you are fine. you can only have one male in a tank as they will fight to the death but you can have many females in the same tank and they will like in harmony. you must make sure that you provide fish with places to hide and feed them properly, to be honest what i find is becsuse i feed my fish a mixed dried food for tropical fish and weekly give then live food in the form of blood worms and daphnia they live in harmony.

to put a fish in a bowl is cruel and to be honest they look far better swimming freely in a nice tank and not in a small fish bowl

If want to have just the Chinese fighting fish. Put only one male with 3 or more females as they will chase a single female to death.Never have more than 1 male together or near to each other it does stress them and can kill them.They do do very well as mentioned above in tanks with other species of fish.

Sorry had not gotten back soon on this Mantra. Hoe is the little bloke going?

As for companions, they do quite well with a lot of fish I found but suufer from the aggressive tail biters (Barbs) I think they were called. While they are aggressive with other males of the same same species they are actually quite placid.

Calanen wrote on Jul 11^th, 2009 at 10:48am:



Talking is basic human right respected in democratic countries and on democratic forums but suppressed by dictators in moslem and atheistic countries and forums.


But back to topic:
Mantra, you can stabilise water temperature of the bowl by placing the bowl into styrofoam box. You can get the box from a green grocery shop after they emptied  broccolis or such out of it.

FD and Muso were correct in their water theory, although admittedly I didn't put all my faith in it initially.

The little fish survived the remainder of the cold, cold winter in the larger bowl, although he's battled scarred, scalded and deformed from all the different hot and cold water temperatures he was subject to during my periods of uncertainty.

Next winter I'll leave him in the large bowl where the temperatures remain fairly stable. By surviving the winter and my ministrations - he will survive anything now.

It was an interesting exercise.  

mantra wrote on Oct 20^th, 2009 at 9:03am:


Not so interesting for the fish...

mantra wrote on Oct 20^th, 2009 at 11:56am:



Don't worry, for fish the world starts anew every 8 seconds.

lol, actually they do test different animals to see how their brains work, and evidence is on the fishermens side of this argument.
What surprised me with these sorts of studies was that horses brains are not nearly as advanced as people gave them credit for.
Apparently they have very short retention times as well, which means that how they are best trained, needs to be adapted to fit in with their abilities.

Yes I heard of that experiment with horses which found them to be less than intelligent, but as a previous horse owner, I'd tend to disagree.
My poor old horsy used to be able to open our back door (with a round knob) and he once walked right into the house. He also had a habit of opening the chaff shed and filling himself with oats.
He knew how to do a lot of things that he wasn't purposely trained to do as well as those that he was trained for, and sometimes I'm sure he even knew what I was thinking.
Maybe the horses in the experiment were just too damned smart to fall for human crap.