hello I was hoping to find out what people think is the easiest but yet budget way to divide a 2 foot aquarium? is filtered by a canister filter. maybe fishmosy or another guru has posted the ideal solution already but I cant find it!

thanks [emoji3]

love n peace

will

I reckon a large sponge from from eBay around 25mm thick would be the cheapest not great for flow unless you put intake and outlet on opposite sides.

The shrimp can climb over so keep water level a couple of centimetres low.

Edited February 8, 201511 yr by inverted

Sponge pad is cheap and easy to install, but as inverted said the shrimp can climb over and it is a pain to clean. I've just done it with glass partitions but the silicone does take days to cure before you can refill the tank. The glass was free as offcuts from a mate. My standard 2' tanks (600x300mm) took partitions 295mm square. 

You could also build a frame to take a mesh divider but finding the mesh is the tricky part. You can buy "midge mesh" or "small insect mesh" at the hardware but it's still not really small enough for everything. If you check fishmosy's recent thread on diy strainers you'll see the mesh grades he recommends. I will look into pricing through Aquasonic this week because he's quite right, that good mesh is expensive. 

hey thankyou both very much for the advice! the sponge sounds like an easy option but how would you clean it? I can certainly put intake and spraybar at opposite ends of tank I like setting them up in diagonally opposite corners anyway because it leaves no dead spot and creates a good swirling effect.

Poster hangers from Kmart with mesh would be the cheapest but wouldn't look very nice. My 4ft is divided with glass and has 3 holes drilled with mesh covering.

I have a eheim 2217 classic with intake in one partition and outtake in the other. I also have an otto filter in both sections.

do you find the otto filters add much heat to the tank? I have an otto but I stopped using it because that tank seemed to get hotter than the tanks with canisters - i xouldnt quite figure it out but maybe only because the tank was just more closed and had less of an evaporative cooling effect plus heat from fluro got trapped.. meh dunno

ps would u really trust the plastics in a kmart poster hanger?

do you find the otto filters add much heat to the tank?

Anything that has an impeller like pumps, power heads, internal filters, or canister filters produce heat. Could be as much as 1 to 3 deg C depending on the size of the tank.

Anything that has an impeller like pumps, power heads, internal filters, or canister filters produce heat. Could be as much as 1 to 3 deg C depending on the size of the tank.

Thanking you! I thought it may be making some difference I think it is probably more like 3 degrees increase in this case!

thanks for confirming my suspicion :-)