# Please Recommend Food For Pleco



## didi (Mar 24, 2010)

Hi there, 

I recently purchased a pleco from big als. I think it is a common pleco, I am not sure of the exact name . if Necessary I can post a picture of him. He is about 5cm now. I had a lot of algae in my tank and within the last weeks, my pleco ate all of it. 

It was yesterday that I noticed him lying lazily on the gravel and doing absolutely nothing. I think he cleaned the tank so well that there is nothing left for him to eat.

Do I need to feed him, or is he going to be fine?
if Yes, what kind of food would you suggest to b

Today he is doing better.


Can someone help me?


Thank you,
Didi


----------



## didi (Mar 24, 2010)

Info about my tank:

MY tank is 36 gallons.
2 Glowlight Tetras.
6 Neon Tetras.
7 Platies(1 Sunrise, 2 Red Platies, 2 Micky Mouse, 1 Jumbo Platyand 1 Fancy Platy)
6 Guppies( 1 Neon, 2 Dragon and 3 female ones)
1 Pleco
1 albino cory catfish

I might have to give my pleco to someone once he grows because I think my tank will not handle it. But he was so cute, I couldn't resist buying him.

I have an AC 70 filtration and an acquen filter that came with the acquarium.

I am looking forward to receiving your feedback.

Thank you


----------



## characinfan (Dec 24, 2008)

Your pleco needs to eat wood to be healthy and happy. Do you have any driftwood in there?

Good food for plecos: slices of zucchini (slice along the length of the zucchini so the pleco won't get trapped in the ring of skin), sweet potato, carrot, cucumber, watermelon rind, etc. -- make sure the cucumber skin is not waxed, if you are using cucumber, and also slice it along the length just like the zucchini.


----------



## Philip.Chan.92 (Apr 25, 2010)

The algae that builds up in an aquarium is not enough to feed a pleco unless you have a huge aquarium, 36 gallon definitely not enough. I suggest you to feed him sinking algae pellets, you can ask your LFS about which one is best, but just make sure that algae is the main component in the pellets and not meat. They are somewhat ominivorous but they do better with algae pellets in my experience. You should also feed those sinking algae pellets to cory catfish. Remember to keep cory catfish in groups of 3 or more, they need others of their own kind to be happy.


----------



## didi (Mar 24, 2010)

> Your pleco needs to eat wood to be healthy and happy. Do you have any driftwood in there?
> 
> Good food for plecos: slices of zucchini (slice along the length of the zucchini so the pleco won't get trapped in the ring of skin), sweet potato, carrot, cucumber, watermelon rind, etc. -- make sure the cucumber skin is not waxed, if you are using cucumber, and also slice it along the length just like the zucchini.


Hi & thank you for your reply.

No I don't have any driftwood in mya tank. I have a marine like fake decoration with corals etc.

How do I prevent the vegetables from flowing to the surface?
Do I have to attch them to the bottom of the tank?

Didi


----------



## didi (Mar 24, 2010)

> The algae that builds up in an aquarium is not enough to feed a pleco unless you have a huge aquarium, 36 gallon definitely not enough. I suggest you to feed him sinking algae pellets, you can ask your LFS about which one is best, but just make sure that algae is the main component in the pellets and not meat. They are somewhat ominivorous but they do better with algae pellets in my experience. You should also feed those sinking algae pellets to cory catfish. Remember to keep cory catfish in groups of 3 or more, they need others of their own kind to be happy.


Thank you.

Can I feed the same algae pellets to both my pleco and cory catfish?
What is LFS?

Didi


----------



## gratefulgrapefruit (Mar 25, 2010)

People usually blanch the vegetables (boil for a quick minute or two) to both soften the vegetable and to prevent it from floating to the surface. Else, there are little clips that you can buy that you can attach to the side of your tank. 

Also, from what i understand, the algae pellet is good for both corys and plecos? Not 100% sure on that though. 

LFS = local fish store. 

Hope that is somewhat helpful!


----------



## bob123 (Dec 31, 2009)

Hi: attach the vegatable to a stone with an elastic band and it will stay on the bottom but don't leave the veggie in the tank more than two days as it will foul your water. The wood is for the pleco to rasp on, as the pleco gets larger he/she may bother the other fish.


----------



## TBemba (Jan 11, 2010)

you can also use a Bamboo skewer

They sell them at the dollar store and you can just stick them in the gravel. You can also use some old forks


----------



## igor.kanshyn (Jan 14, 2010)

There are algae sinking pellets on a market. They are good for pleco as well for other fishes. This is a problem. Your platies and tertas will eat those pellets and your pleco will not be happy.

Better food for pleco is cut vegetables as characinfan mentioned. Fishes will not be so interested in them and your pleco can suck himself to a piece of cucumber or zucchini and eat as mush he wants 

I use suction cups with a cut. I cut a slice of a vegetable, pill it and place into suction cup cut. Suction cup is attached to a tank side in a dept easy to access.


----------



## TBemba (Jan 11, 2010)

igor.kanshyn said:


> There are algae sinking pellets on a market. They are good for pleco as well for other fishes. This is a problem. Your platies and tertas will eat those pellets and your pleco will not be happy.
> 
> Better food for pleco is cut vegetables as characinfan mentioned. Fishes will not be so interested in them and your pleco can suck himself to a piece of cucumber or zucchini and eat as mush he wants
> 
> I use suction cups with a cut. I cut a slice of a vegetable, pill it and place into suction cup cut. Suction cup is attached to a tank side in a dept easy to access.


Suction cup is a good idea.

But you are wrong about other fish not liking vegetables. I have had many fish love cucumbers/Zucchini and lettuce. Like mollies, platys, tropheus, Simochromis and gourami's. Plenty more I am sure


----------



## didi (Mar 24, 2010)

Thank you guys, these are all great inputs.

I think I should use vegetables instead of pellets because I don't want my other fish to eat them. I ll buy some tonight and try to see how Pleco is going to like it! 

What else can I use instead of driftwood?



> They sell them at the dollar store and you can just stick them in the gravel. You can also use some old forks


What do you mean by that? what kind of forks? I am a bit confused by that.

I have a bamboo plant that I can cut a small piece out and put it in the acquarium. Do you think this will work?

Thank you all again 
Didi


----------



## TBemba (Jan 11, 2010)

didi said:


> Thank you guys, these are all great inputs.
> 
> I think I should use vegetables instead of pellets because I don't want my other fish to eat them. I ll buy some tonight and try to see how Pleco is going to like it!
> 
> ...


Fork http://gotnomilk.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/fork.jpg

Bamboo skewers http://www.alliedkenco.com/catalog/images/SKEWERS_BAMBOO1.jpg


----------



## igor.kanshyn (Jan 14, 2010)

TBemba said:


> Suction cup is a good idea.
> 
> But you are wrong about other fish not liking vegetables. I have had many fish love cucumbers/Zucchini and lettuce. Like mollies, platys, tropheus, Simochromis and gourami's. Plenty more I am sure


You right, fishes love vegetables and my fishes eat cucumbers and zucchini I prepared for a pleco. The difference is that they are not so crazy about them like they are about pellets. My pleco can get access to a vegetable 
Sliced vegetables are also more properly shaped for pleco to eat. It can suck into a big piece of vegetable like to a glass.


----------



## igor.kanshyn (Jan 14, 2010)

TBemba said:


> Fork http://gotnomilk.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/fork.jpg
> 
> Bamboo skewers http://www.alliedkenco.com/catalog/images/SKEWERS_BAMBOO1.jpg


Sometimes I use an aluminium screw that I have left from IKEA furniture. One screw placed into a piece of cucumber make it sink.


----------



## didi (Mar 24, 2010)

Hi,

I went and purchased some zucchini and Cucumber for my pleco. I attached some zucchini to the glass with a suction cup. My pleco seems to go around it and suck on it for a little while and then leaves again. My platies and guppies seem to love it since they ve been trying to bite small pieces from it. 

I also used some bamboo sticks as TBemba reccomended.

Thank you all.

Can someone recommend to me a good brand name flakes for my other fishy?
What do you guys use for your fish?
I use TOP-Fin tropical color-enhancing flakes.

Cheers


----------



## AquariAM (Jan 28, 2010)

You can't feed plecos on a diet of vegetables. You can include them. But only as 20% of the diet at max. 

If you have a common pleco or a gibbiceps or sailfin it will eventually exceed one foot. 

A good surefire diet that will work regardless of what kind of 'common pleco' you have, as well as if you have a bushynose, is a sinking pellet, ie, New Life Spectrum H20 stable, or Hikari Bottom Feeder, or Omega Sea/One Shrimp pellets

also as mentioned an Algae Wafer

you can also add small amounts of frozen food like mysis shrimp to about 5% max of the diet.

Something like 30/30 algae wafer/bottom feeder pellet 30 algae 5 veggie 5 frozen is what I aim for with common plecos and bushy nose and medusa/bristlenose pleco.

Stop using Top Fin. If you live in Toronto you can get your hands on some pretty good food. New Life Spectrum is a good easily found food at most Big Als and you can train pretty much any fish to take their 0.5mm and 1mm pellets. 0.5mm grow formula is an excellent staple for community fish. They're much more nutritionally compact and produce less waste than flakes. Top Fin is not a good food brand. Good food brands, in my opinion, that reliably produce superior quality foods, are Dainichi, New Life, Ocean Nutrition, OSI, and to a somewhat lesser extent, Hikari, Omega One/Sea

What you feed to the fish makes as much of an impact on how they turn out as how you maintain your tank. It's very important.

If a fish wont eat a hard pellet because it is used to soft flake, soak the pellets in a bottle cap of aquarium water, not tap water or other water, for a couple of minutes to make it soft. After several weeks you can stop doing this and the fish will take the hard pellet 90% of the time.


----------



## characinfan (Dec 24, 2008)

Colour-enhancing tip for vegetable-eating fish: feed them sweet potato and red pepper and carrot shavings (if they like them - and mine do) -- these vegetables are full of natural carotenoids and will enhance the yellows, oranges and reds of your fish.

Oh yeah, carrot, sweet potato and bell pepper slices all sink by themselves. So do broken edamame (cooked without salt), blueberries, and mango. You can have a lot of fun experimenting with feeding your fish vegetable matter. The only things I would avoid giving to the fish are uncooked eggplant and potato because they are poisonous raw.

I also agree with AquariAM about good quality pellet food. The Hikari sinking pellets (the ones with the corydoras on the package) are like fish crack! Fish love them.


----------



## bae (May 11, 2007)

Another good veggie for fish is lightly cooked frozen peas. I put some in a cup with some water and cook in the microwave for a minute or so. Pinch them to break the skins before you feed. Plecos will eat the skins, and just about every fish I've tried them on will eat the flesh. They sink, too, which is convenient.

Plecos are nocturnal, so if you want to make sure he gets a particular food before the other fish do, put it in the tank after lights-out.


----------



## didi (Mar 24, 2010)

Hi Guys,

My pleco loves the zucchini. 
Thank you again for all the info.

You ve been great!


----------



## didi (Mar 24, 2010)

Hi,

my all other fish love the zucchini and since it got softer they have been nipping it. They almost ate the whole piece. I just want to ask, is there a chance for my fish to die if they eat too much of vegetables. I feed them once a day. 

Thank you.


----------



## AquariAM (Jan 28, 2010)

didi said:


> Thank you.
> 
> Can I feed the same algae pellets to both my pleco and cory catfish?
> What is LFS?
> ...


Most of the more commonly available cory and pleco species are very easy to care for. Feed a variety. If they dont want it they wont eat it.

Again I'd keep 'land veggies' to about 5 percent myself. I've raised some very stunning plecos without ever a hint of any land food.

My plecos ate Sera pleco tabs, New Life Spectrum cichlid and Hikari Cichlid complete, Algae Wafers, Shrimp pellets, Hikari bottom feeder wafers, algae, the occasional frozen mysis shrimp.


----------



## characinfan (Dec 24, 2008)

didi said:


> is there a chance for my fish to die if they eat too much of vegetables.


There's about as much chance of them dying from overconsumption of veggies as there is for you to die of overconsumption of veggies. 

Just make sure their diet is varied, as everyone else suggests. Some fish naturally eat more vegetable matter than others. Right now they're probably all excited because it's something new (and the pleco was just hungry). No worries.


----------



## didi (Mar 24, 2010)

> There's about as much chance of them dying from overconsumption of veggies as there is for you to die of overconsumption of veggies


Lol  ok. Thank you!

You had to see how they ate it! There was nothing left.

I ordered some micro pellets and some wafers for the bottom feeders 
I ll probably receive the products by Monday.


----------



## Philip.Chan.92 (Apr 25, 2010)

algae pellets and wood. Get both. Cucumbers work as well I stick a chopstick through it, you can use w/e sinks pretty much, you can even impale the cucumber on a small fork and it will sink. DO NOT blanch or cook the cucumber to make it sink, the cucumber will lose nutritional value.


----------



## Plaid (Nov 10, 2008)

All kinds of fish love zucchine, really. Almost all african cichlids will eat it, all catfish I've seen locally, all algae eaters (Great food for acclimating otocinclus cats. They can be finicky, but never turn down the zuch'). My yoyo loaches pick at it, the khuki's pick at it, even my angelfish. The only things that doesn't eat it in my tank are the panchax killifish, and I think they would if there were bits of it floating around the surface.

And good luck with the pleco.
Wes


----------

