Pleco diet

[malott72]

Hello all. Will Plecos help eat the bacteria bloom in my tank? I understand I have to throw in algae chips as well, but I was just curious.

 

[BLUElobster99]

Even tank is exposed to decent sunlight i would put in couple of wafers each week. I personally recommend hikari algae wafers.



When I was younger i had a pleco in my first tank. I never used waffers. I was 9 haha. But he lived 8-10 years and died at about 6 inches.
This pleco seemed to find enough nutrition through sunken flakes of tropical food that my other fish ignored and the algae growth. But this tank was near a window and had about 10 ours of sunlight each day so it really depends.

 

[Bubbs72]

Do they like vegetables of any sort or just algae wafers?

 

[Rivercats]

No fish eats the bacteria in a bacterial bloom. I feed my pleco's and other algae eaters mainly cooked, deshelled, slightly smushed peas and I cut a couple strips of Zucchini every day, blanch them, and hang them on veggie clips. Many of my fish enjoy having the veggies available daily. It also helps keeping other fish like my Angels from plant nibbling.

 

[BLUElobster99]

Yeah zucchini is a great option too

My brothers more excotic algae eater (the name escapees me) requires such food and enjoys cucumber as well

He cooks them then impales them with wooden cooking skewers and sticks plants them in his tank

This makes the process of removing the uneaten food much easier as you will only have to pull up the tall scewers from your tank instead of fishing around with a net.

 

[BLUElobster99]

Hope i helped!

 

[Bubbs72]

Sounds good. I will add this to my grocery list to buy for ours.