Does Bristlenose Pleco eat diatoms?

[dla88]

Mine's albino bristlenose pleco from petsmart, about 1.5 inch. I put him into my 30 gallon tank that I was running for about 4 months now with quite some of diatoms.

I do see him swimming around, sucking on the walls and driftwood but I barely notice any diatoms gone in my tank. I searched around and some say that their BNP doesn't even touch diatoms. While other say that their BNP do eat it.

I was counting on diatoms as pleco's food until he grows a bit because I also have two goldfishes about 2.5 inches big running around who would destroy any food I'd give to pleco. Will my pleco eat diatoms? Can he survive on it? Is there any way I can give anything to my BNP when there is two goldfishes hovering around?

 

[FishyBusiness]

First off, to answer your question, they are "the best" for diatoms, mine eats it like crazy. I've sense took care of the diatom problem a while back, but you still have to supplement with wafers or other foods.

Secondly, plecos are tropical fish and goldfish are cold water. They should not be mixed.

If you have a cold water tank, I'd suggest re-homing the pleco and find the source of your diatoms and correcting it (over feeding, infrequent PWC, etc, to cut the phosphates down)

Plecos have a huge bioload, as do goldfish, and getting one to solve a diatom algae outbreak would really not help much. However, in new tanks, diatoms are common and usually go away within 6 months. Better off manually cleaning. If you already have the pleco, it's a great opportunity to get a 2nd aquarium for tropical fish!