Exodons

[Cerbios]

I am building a shoal of exos, I have 5 so far, the biggest being just under 2" the littlest being about two thirds that big. I have no problem getting them to eat, their eating a cichlid meat based pellets as their staple diet and may start getting feeders as a mounthly treat when and if I get a quarenten tank. (I know i didnt spell that right) any way i would like to know from someone whose had them before how much to feed them, being ravenous little fish in constant search of food it seems they'd eat as much i give to the point of killing themselves. Im just giving them about as much as I think other (sane) fish would eat daily. Should I feed them till they stop eating? and or should I switch to a larger meal weekly like with pirhana as oposed to daily.
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[CFC]

Treat them just like any other tetras with occasional meaty treats given, feed them every day with a flake or pellet staple with some frozen bloodworm or brine shrimp thrown in for variety and fillets of whitebait/silver sides once a week or so. I wouldnt bother with feeders, Exodons are fin and scale eaters so unless the feeders are very small and can just be swallowed whole all they will do is nip and harrass the feeders which stresses them out and adds to the risk of disease.

I would seriously recomend boosting your shoal number to at least 12 as soon as you can, in my experience when kept in groups of less than 10 they start to fight non stop and will canibalise the smallest/weakest fish.

 

[Cerbios]

Thanks, I intend to get ten+ ( going for 12-13, expecting to be down to around 9-10 as they mature) as soon as possible, but Ive had only five now for several weeks and theres been little fighting. There in a 55 with plenty of hiding spots and every time one of them gets aggresive its been quickly diffused by the other running off to one of the many rock caves. When I said feeders I was thinking zebra danios to act as a treat they have to put some effort into. I'd feed my fish goldfish just as willingly as I would take them out of aquarim and throw them against a wall. A couple zebras is what I cycled the tank with and the first three exodons ate a lot more then their scales ( they vanished overnight). I dont use feeders as staples as I find it cruel in an enclousure where they have no chance of escaping but I also think if your going to keep predators its wrong to try to completly change their nature, so I compromise. So you feed your Exo's daily? May Iask if youve had any long term problems with them and live plants, other then them not being fond of bright plant lights, i dont expect any, but that would be annoying if I continue to invest money planting the aquariam.

 

[CFC]

I dont keep live plants in any of my tanks, well i've got a few stringy bits of Vallis in my 200g but thats only because i was too mean to throw the plants out when i tore down the tank they were in. Personally i don't like live plants in FISH tanks as in order for plants to do really well you have to make sacrifices on the fish and a densly planted tank is almost impossible to clean properly which isn't good if you have messy predators spitting bits of shredded flesh everywhere.

However there shouldnt be any problems with growing low light plants in the tank with Exodons, things like Amazon swords and Vallis do well with as little as 1 watt per gallon and provided you add some fertilzer once a week they dont require any special substrates or CO2 to grow reasonably well.

What is fun to watch them eat and less ethicly wrong than using live fish is to feed them medium sized brown crickets which they tear to pieces at the surface, wild Exodons are primarily insect eaters feeding on flying insects that fall into the water, only when insects are short in supply will they oppertunisticly grab a mouthfull of scales or fin off a passing fish, its much less dangerous to eat food that doesn't just turn around and swallow them.

 

[FeroX]

Agreed, watching them destroy crickets is simply amazing. Usually I throw in a large 1 for my shoal after a short bit of flake and it's intense. The small guys tentatively go at it, then realize it's a TASTY FOOD MORSEL and take it in their mouse, furiously trying to devour it, and that's when the piranha-like frenzy kicks in and all fish have a go at this poor cricket. Mealworms they also relish, but as they are HIGH in fat content, I would avoid using them except as maybe a once or bi-monthly treat. Cutting it in half will get them going at it quicker and makes sure it doesn't just sink to bottom and rot (which has happened before) Cutting it open gets them tuned in (guts flowin around in tank gets sensed) and they devour them, usually after a good 6 of them having a go at 1. Quick side note, OBVIOUSLY excellent filtration is needed.

They need daily feeding IMO to keep their harrassment down. ESPECIALLY if you have a size difference, as I do. I probably have a good 3 or 4 full-grown mature adult pricks in my tank, and the rest are ~2". If I'm to keep everyone relatively happy (as happy-go-loving as exos can get ) they need daily feeding. I now use a good brand of flake as my staple, supplemented with krill, crickets, brine shrimp, and tubifex. Krill is also REALLY fun to watch them eat.

Exos, as you have read/know, don't appreciate the sun (your tank light) BLARING down on them intensely. Lots of low-light plants can thrive in an exo tank provided you give them the essential exodon needs:

dimly lit tank (I use 2 18" aqua-glo bought a while ago before I realized theyre kinda useless for plant growth which is why I bought them, noob mistake, but they bring out their colours nicely and are dim)
softer water (bogwood helps, they love the tannins, I have 3 giant pieces and 2 smaller pieces in my 55g)
visual barriers (put a big thick something in the middle of the tank, i.e. wood)
hiding places (yes they are active but also appreciate a hiding place, sometimes I only see a couple exos in my tank. this can be accomplished any which way, they're not picky)
floating plants HELP A LOT! they love them. Hornwort works perfectly

This is of course, the essential needs, not absolutely mandatory but it really helps your exos live a healthy life. I haven't had 1 exodon death yet (apart from my cat deciding to fish out 3 of them simply by sticking his paw in a small hole in the tank and them jumping out ) and I have a decent sized shoal at 12 or 13 with some very big size differences.

Anyway, back to plants lol, off-topic sorry. Lots of low-light plants can thrive in an exo tank. Java fern, Vals, amazon swords, crypts (wendtii ALWAYS good), anubias, hornwort (floating), any other low-light floating plant will be fine too. They would certainly love a big amazon sword both as a visual barrier and a hiding place, same w/ vals. Crypts make nice aesthetic additions to the tank and larger ones can provide cover for smaller dudes for sure. Hornwort they relish at the top. I always see an exo or 2 hiding beneath my massive tangle of hornwort floating in my tank. Java fern works too, but doesn't do too too much for the exos other than consume nitrate. In my tank it's doing both that and providing a home for my freshwater hydra. Java moss can of course, also be used, and MAY provide a hiding spot if intelligently placed in a tank, but is otherwise useless apart from nitrate consumption and aesthetics.

Key part is not overloading the tank w/ plants because as CFC mentioned, it's just too damn hard cleaning after preds in a densely planted tank. Exodons are voracious eaters and will of course mess their food everywhere in the tank. Only a few plants here and there are really needed, if you go larger plants such as vals or swords, then only 1 or 2 are needed (except in case of Vals, 1 or 2 big "clumps" if you know what I mean, would be fine). In my tank I only have a crypt wendtii, anubias nana, 2 moss balls (aesthetic purposes, these things are just so damn COOL), 1 piece of java fern, and a clump of hornwort floating at top.

Feeders, as mentioned again by CFC, are useless with exodons. Like he mentioned, all they do is eat scales. In the wild a LARGE portion of their diet is simply fish scales, as they are high in nutrients and part of exodon natural behaviour. Throwing feeders the same size as the exos or larger is useless as they will only get nipped to bits but still be alive and simply contract disease. I've seen my exos take out a good sized platys head though (completely gone, rest of body untouched however). But still, they left the rest and I had to scoop it out. If you want feeders, only guppies IMO. Seeing them eat guppies is cool, but it's the same thing as them hunting down a floating bit of brine shrimp or bloodworm so it's not needed at all.

long post. bedtime. lol sorry