Frustrated with the tank now what...
 

My tank is coming up on its 2 year mark and my fish are growing and having a great time but the problem is I cant add more.

Every time I try to buy a new fish and add it, it ends up going into the rock work night 1 or 2 never to be seen again. Yet all my old fish are fine, no fighting, everyone eats and is out at various times.

What can I do?? Should I tear out all the live rock and rework the entire tank then try a new fish?? Do I need to remove someone who might be the silent bully?

I haven't bought new fish in a long time because I know from loosing some over a year ago that its just not worth the risk. But now im starting to slow down on the coral up keep and want more fish.


Stock List is as follows
(72x20x20 tank)

Foxface
Blue Tang
Yellow Tank
Yellow Eye Kole Tang
6 Line Wrasse
Yellow Tail Damsel
2x False Perc
Banggai Cardinalfish
Coral Beauty
Long Spin Urchin


Any tips would be helpful, I would like to add that the damsel and the 6 line are both great fish who dont seem to bully anyone over food or space from what I can tell and have been part of my tanks for over 4 years now.

you could try an acclimation box if you think theres a bully , some fish on that list can be aggressive . 6 line , or the tangs could be the culprit.

Whenever I add new fish that get picked on I put a divider in the middle of my tank and keep my current fish on one side and the new fish on the other. After a few days things always seem to be OK. I had a copperband butterfly get picked on almost to death by my tang. Put in a divider for 3 days and when I took it out they were fine. However not everybody's tank is able to be divided. Like it has been said an acclimation box might also work. How big is your tank? That could also be an issue

125gal tank, I posted the dimensions ;)

I guess I will need to look for an acclimation box then and maybe try that out. How long should you leave a fish inside the box for?

I've got a similar problem, My coral beauty passed on a month back and I replaced him with a beautiful flame angel.
The problem is my pair of clowns think he's a threat I guess because of his color and drive him crazy, the only good thing is he gives it back as well. I hoping they all get past the aggression, I think it's going to take some time though.
The acclimation box is a great idea but I'll never catch anything with all rock work so I'll just have to let it sort itself out.

I've read doing a re-aquascape will blur the territorial lines and start everyone off from scratch. Any way of moving a few things?

You could also rearrange the rock work just before adding the new fish to cause the fish to loose their territorial boundaries and force them to create new ones.

Actually I just did a small rescape on the left side of my 90g yesterday so we'll see how that goes, maybe I should do the right side as well.

I could, the tank has been setup this way since we started it so lots of coral growth but im sure I could find a way.

I was worried this might end up being an option, think if I am going to do its going to be a big change.

I've personally never had any success with this method. The territories that the fish we have the most problems with (tangs in particular) have 'territories' in the wild that are dozens to hundreds of times larger than most people's tanks. Some don't even maintain territories.

I don't think it's an issue of most fish thinking "hey, this tiny pile of rocks is my pile of rocks", it's an issue of another fish with features or colouration that triggers aggressive tendencies in them being placed inside what they would normally consider their personal space and them not being able to get away from each other. Eventually they just used to one another, but I don't think re-arranging the rocks has much of an impact on their psychology beyond scaring everyone in to a corner while your arms are in the tank.