Raise temp to 80F?

I know better than to walk into Aquatic Critter in Nashville and believe I'm only going to come out with brine shrimp... Sure enough, after thoroughly enjoying over an hour of browsing (WOW! It's better oogling than the state aquarium when it comes to cichlids!) I ended up buying two juvenile pairs of dwarf cichlids... Guess they keep them in with mollies/tetras in order to tempt those of us with planted barb tanks.. LOL

So now I have a pair of German Golds and Butterflies. The store manager informed me that the only change I needed to make in my planted barb tank was to keep the temp between 78-82. It's 76 right now.

I went by Petco on the way home. The aquarium enthusiast sales lady was there today. (she's up to 300 total gallons at home now. Really into it) We discussed my new dwarfs and she informed me that she had a problem keeping them alive until she set her temp at 80F. Hasn't had a problem since.

Does 80F sound right to you all as well? The barbs/tetras can handle it, they'll just get more hyper.

i think almost all the fish will do good in 80F, i always had it like that with any fish and have no problem, good luck!!!

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80 degrees is usually not warm enough to bother tropicals. Particularly those from the Amazon region. It does, however, help keep ich at bay unless they are highly stressed or injured.

It will also be important to watch your fish closely to see how they adjust to the temperature change, and to monitor your water parameters for a few days.

Best of luck to you.

Raise it slowly, but you should be more than fine. I keep all of my tanks at 78-80 degrees and I have kept dwarfs before. Two tips for you, though.

1) SMALL water changes ONLY! (Maybe 5-15 percent at the most) **Keeps high swings in water chemistry from happening.

2) If you find you have more than 1 male, make sure that you have a visual divider in the center of the tank. It will help greatly to reduce the aggression. (True with most cichlids)

There are a lot of tall and/or thick plants already. I have one terracotta 'cave' - but am taking a large cracked pot with me in order to make a couple of more caves. They'll look like discarded 'pottery shards'. The store sold me a definite pair of the Goldens and what they thought was a pair of the Butterflies. Did admit to me that the Butterflies were a little young to be sure on the sex - so not to be surprised if they weren't opposite sexes. They are all 1.5-2".

Won't be the dozen or so 'caves/hiding spots' that I have in the Malawi tank, but there will be hiding spots in all four corners once I'm done. Though you might not see two of them with the plants along the back. ( BTW the young Mbunas/Peacocks are funny as hell when I throw a shrimp pellet in. They come out of hiding from all corners and dive for it. Then disappear back to their assigned 'digs'. They've really adapted well to the classroom tank)

I've been changing 5G per week using an old feedbucket. Should I reduce that in the 29G?

That's all i would do. You just want to avoid big swings in ph and temperature. That doesn't sit well with the dwarfs. I've lost German Blue Rams by doing big water changes.