Experiment

[mordor]

For reasons beyond my control I was forced stay outside of US for two months. I left my tankes under supervision of my co-worker who never got aquarium. He was asked to drop weekend food once every couple days. To make it even worse I forgot and switched off heating in two tanks. I thought that I would see only plecos and cories left in my tanks. When I returned tanks were half empty, I was going only for Christmas only so I forgot to mentiond water changes to my friend :-) I was quite suprised when I noticed that maybe 3-5 fishes are gone. Temperature was about 70, fishes were skinny but mostly alive :-) I lost rotpunkt male and females of cacatuoides, viejita and carapintada. My fishes get wild, when I am approaching tanks they hide. When I returned I did 80% water. and huge cleaning. I hasn't found dead fish since that. I guess rest of fishes will recover.

[Park Bear]

I know I have left my fish for a week or 2 at a time and haven't experienced any loses, but 2 months, well it sounds like you were very fortunate with only having a few dead fish.

[tjudy]

:)
The magic of being ectothermal. 'Cold blooded' organisms do not need nearly the energy input of us endotherms. The fact that 50% of the water evaporated speaks highly to the ability for these fish to withstand a wide variety of water parameters. Did the filters shut off?

[mordor]

Sponge filters were down but external filters were working.

[Neil]

mordor,
Long time, no read! :D
I have always been astounded by the fact that some apistos can handle such extremes with no ill-effects and then other can die for no (apparent)reason at all. Many of the environments that these fish come from are not far off from what killies deal with. That is what makes them so interesting. They usually ship quite well for this reason. They seem to be able to handle the varied situations (ie, temp.) that occur in the bag better than alot of other fish. I am sure that they don't like it, but they do seem to handle it fairly well.
Neil