Jade Perch - Barcoo Grunter (Scortum Barcoo)

[RupertofOZ]

I'd heard anecdotal evidence that someone had over-wintered Jade Perch on the Central Coast... in an unheated 2000L tank... sitting on the ground and totally exposed...

Didn't really believe it... until Thursday when I delivered some trout.... and sure enough... there were about 50x 1kg+... 15 month old Jade Perch swimming around the tank...

I figure the water temp must have got down around 14 or below during the winter around Wyong... possibly even lower....

What's the lowest, and highest water temperatures that people have keep Jade Perch in... sucessfully?

[Castaway]

I've had them down to 12 C over winter with no problems on a cold morning. That's as low as I've seen on my thermometer. They wont eat at that temp and stay inert with little movement underwater.

[Murray]

Two tanks of mine last winter went down to 12 c water temp and all survived.
It is anybody's guess what will happen below 12.

The temps were not down at 12 all that often...more average would be 15.
Fish moved about so slowly and often even stationary for very long periods...hardly ate anything for a couple of months.
One particular fish would actually lay on it's side on the bottom and always looked like it was dying, but reach in and touch, it would come upright and swim away very slowly.
My big tank of Jades with around 140 fish at the time was heated by gas and kept between 16 and 18 deg by the gas heater. They ate and continued to grow slowly over winter.
Personally, I believe it can be done without any or very minimal heating.

[fishfood]

OK will try mine out this winter

[Tsaphah]

Mine have not endured such cold due to where I am located, but have hit 31°C on the hot side!