Divider problems

[PumaWard]

Recently, I stripped down my C. gourami tank, divided my ten and now I have my chocolate on one side and my Juliodochromis transcriptus (masked julie) on the other (I know totally different water chemistry, but my water falls right in between the two and they both have been living in it for a while now). Anyway, my chocolate gourami keeps finding a way past the divider and onto the Juli's side as he likes to pick food off the filter. Should I worry about this... or wait and see?

Also, the water differs about 3 degrees less on the juli's side than on the chocolate's.. is it going to hurt my chocolate if he keeps going over there?

[Matt W]

3 degrees difference? You have water flowing between the two right? And you say this is a 10 gallon?

[PumaWard]

It's got a cheapo walmart hood, and one of the lights blew... I don't have a light on the Juli's side, I think that's where the temp difference is. The divider is also pretty solid, it's a DIY. Drilled holes in it with a Dremel.

I ment my water chem falls between the two fish's prefered water chem. The filter is on the juli's side.

[Tightdog1]

i think you need more holes in the divider and a better way to secure the divider.

[Locust]

It might be that your Gourami is jumping the divider. If your divider reaches to the hood, check to make your there are no gaps in the hood.

[RClarkofNC]

Since your chocolate keeps jumping the divider to get at the bits of food stuck to the filter, try swapping the two sides so that the chocolate stays on the side with the filter and the Juli is on the other side.

Be careful with dividers. I put a commercial divider into my 10g and put a male betta on each side. The next morning, I woke up to two dead bettas. One had managed to jump through the narrow gap between the hood and the top of the divider. I guess there was a WWF Smackdown on the other side and they both lost. :(

[PumaWard]

The juli, suprisingly, doesn't seem to care that he's over there, which is good. The chocolate goes through I small opening I hadn't noticed before.

I'm not going to fret over things yet, the chocolate can get away from the juli if he needs to, and he certainly knows how to now. :)