Cichlid Territories

[Edge]

I've got 3 tanks setup with cichlids in at the moment (from 20g, to 75g), and when watching them I always start to wonder exactly how they see the tank in terms of territories. I'm assuming there is an element of simple line of sight; if I can't see a rival fish then it's not a threat. But I have also heard that items on the floor of the aquarium can act as boundaries, like drawing a line in the sand. They do their best to confuse me by never using the obvious items as boundary markers.

What made me post this is that I'm getting a new 48"x18"x18" tank soon and I was going to try and combine some of my collection, which will probably result in a few aggression issues as the new pecking order is established. I wanted to give myself a fighting chance by setting up enough clearly marked territories in the tank.

So does anyone have any ideas or experience with this, or is it one of those things that can only ever be trial and error?

 

[england]

Set tank out with what you see as definate diffined boundary's.......
But depend's that again on wether you go for large cichlids/african/drawf/ etc etc

 

[Edge]

Well like I say I've got 3 tanks with NW cichlids in and they are going OK, it's more that this subject fascinates me rather than me being worried about setting up my new tank. Basically I'm a big geek, and I wasn't sure if it interested anyone else.
I wondered what would happen if you divided a cube tank into quarters with simple lines of small rocks and added say 4 male firemouths, would they take a quarter each and be happy? I might do that experiment, hmmm. Also I guess it would be different for angels and festivums, as they hang around near the surface.
The idea of enrichment interests me too, like giving the fish toys or puzzles. They do it at zoos at lot for the mammals but I'm not sure if it's even possible with fish. Maybe I should have put this in the Chat sections (in the absence of a nerd section, my natural habitat)

 

[shroob]

Depends on which specific NW cichlids you're adding to the new tank on what their reactions will be to 'territory establishment'. A fish like a firemouth will probably compromise, where as a jaguar or red devil will claim the whole tank as theirs.

The situation with 4 firemouths and 4 territories will probably result in 1 having a larger territory than the other 3 (depending on tanksize ofcourse - in a 1000 gallon tank I'm sure they will all get on) and how desirable the territories are.

 

[england]

Depends on which specific NW cichlids you're adding to the new tank on what their reactions will be to 'territory establishment'. A fish like a firemouth will probably compromise, where as a jaguar or red devil will claim the whole tank as theirs.<yes don't i know that

The situation with 4 firemouths and 4 territories will probably result in 1 having a larger territory than the other 3 (depending on tanksize ofcourse - in a 1000 gallon tank I'm sure they will all get on) and how desirable the territories are.