Territory and hides

[convict360]

Evening all,

I recently changed my 92 gal layout to remove a hollow rock ornament, replacing it with a solid bit of wood. As such there are no caves in the tank now to hide in, and have noticed some squabbles between my cichlids.

Would putting the cave back in help out?
My reasoning would be that at least one aggressor could claim the cave while the other made do outside of it...

Opinions appreciated, cheers

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[convict360]

Bump...

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[bbortko]

You basically gave 1 toy to a group of kids, give them time and they'll figure it out.

 

[convict360]

True enough, but I made the change almost two weeks ago; any territorial disputes I'd have expected to simmer down. I may just go back to having plenty of hiding spaces, its how I organised my tanks before and worked well if not failing aesthetically lol

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[FriedFlowerHornFillet]

Instead of caves I use "runs" which are basically caves with more than one opening. -And/Or rock clusters that break up the view. With enough "runs" in a big enough tank smaller less aggressive fish can evade trouble makers.

 

[Drstrangelove]

From what I've read and experienced on behavioral studies with tanks and fish, territorial fish have an instinct to claim resources. If there are none, then in many (most? all?) cases the entire tank becomes the resource and the fish don't have a way to resolve that. That works until one day it doesn't work and one of the fish decides to remove competition.