terretories and structure

I decided to replace some unused structure in my tank with a giant, tripod shaped, fake piece of driftwood.

The only used pieces I replaced was a turtle ledge used by the rock bass to hide under, and a rock pillar which waqs tipped up just slighly revealing it's hollow bottom which just happened to hold my third bullhead who disappeared. (he was very agitated on losing his home).

I heard moving and replacing structures can break up terretories, but I see the opposite happening, now all my sunfish are fighting over the new piece (mainly the dollar fighting the others). Is this odd? Should I remove the new structure? Should I remove structure other fish use (a hole filled rock ledge and a hollow stump that bullhead and shiners use) so I can add a second giant piece of fake driftwood?

What do you do when moving and adding objects increases terretorial stress.

I decided to replace some unused structure in my tank with a giant, tripod shaped, fake piece of driftwood.

The only used pieces I replaced was a turtle ledge used by the rock bass to hide under, and a rock pillar which waqs tipped up just slighly revealing it's hollow bottom which just happened to hold my third bullhead who disappeared. (he was very agitated on losing his home).

I heard moving and replacing structures can break up terretories, but I see the opposite happening, now all my sunfish are fighting over the new piece (mainly the dollar fighting the others). Is this odd? Should I remove the new structure? Should I remove structure other fish use (a hole filled rock ledge and a hollow stump that bullhead and shiners use) so I can add a second giant piece of fake driftwood?

What do you do when moving and adding objects increases terretorial stress.

you know its that way with all fish i think that are territorial. when i had my cichlids it was the same way. they each have their territory and when you move stuff around they all fight for new territory. now matter what you do its gonna be a pain if you ask me. i saw just move waht you wanna move let them do their thing.

Yeah. Moving objects can certainly turn on the aggression while they search and claim there new territories. if given sufficient spots, then they can hopefully find their area and stick to it. If you removed too much structure, then the aggression may continue.
I have found that the best time to re-arrange tanks is when introducing new fish.

Here is the trick I used to use when having to rearrange/introduce new fish to a tank of aggressive fish.

• Have it planned out before hand and make the moves as quick as possible.
• Then turn off the lights
• Introduce fish
• Leave lights off for a few hours
• Turn on lights

When you turn back on the lights you can almost see the look in their eyes kind of like a teenager who has gone thru the public school system:

"Whoa! man this is not where I was before and hey there is a new dude in here with us. That's cool I'll just go hide over here and maybe the other fish will leave me alone"

Seemed to keep the aggression and struggle for new areas way down in african and central american cichlid tanks.

Edited by sounguru, 13 January 2010 - 07:37 PM.

I fixed the agression by removing structure from the other side of the tank and adding the other giant fake log.

Now the only terretorial agression is from the rock bass and he is fairly placid most of the time. The only downside is now my tank looks like an overcrowded tangle of tree roots but most of my fish don't seem to mind.

Edited by FirstChAoS, 15 January 2010 - 11:16 AM.