It is also important to study the darters to determine which species are obligate inhabitants of cool-water streams and which are not. Another factor is the source of your darters. Ranging from central Canada to Texas, it can tolerate a wide range of conditions and temperatures. If you keep a warmer aquarium, you obviously might want some log perch from Texas. If your aquarium is cooler, you might want to obtain your stock from a more northern source.
Many hobbyists keep their fishrooms in their basements.
If unheated, it's an ideal place to keep some of your darters. I live in Wisconsin currently, and an occasional obstacle for me in inducing spawning is that my basement does not get warm enough to breed some species. Suffice it to say, it depends upon the species, but many can be kept in an unheated aquarium in one's home. The majority of darter species are tolerant of a wide range on the pH scale. With the variety of habitats darters occupy there will be varying ranges, but general trends seem to apply.