Pleco eating flake food from the surface.

[Cleggat]

This is my 12.6 inch pleco, as you can see he likes to eat flake food from the surface with the gouramis etc, he swims along the tank backwards sucking at the surface for flakes... Don't worry he gets enough algae wafers (that he eats after eating all the flake!) although it's quite handy because if the fish miss a flake or two he goes to the filter and eats them. He's only recently started doing this although my other two have never done it. I'm just posting this to see how many other peoples plecos do this hoping that a lot of other plecos do it too.
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[Meagan.Marie]

not gonna lie thats really kool!!!

 

[Jason7894561230]

Mine never did this it only ate algea wafers peas and flake on the bottom but i didnt even see my pleco that much either

 

[Cleggat]

That's the same with my other plecos, although if I even put my hand in the tank with this one he goes crazy! Although he's getting better, I've had him for two years now but at feeding time he's not shy at all.

 

[redfisher1139]

I have read recently that most plecos are actually omnivorous, and not that great at being algae eaters once they start to mature. My rubber-lipped pleco is true to this form, as he has yet to touch a drop of algae, but he goes nuts when the bloodworms and brine shrimp hit the tank. He also loves shrimp pellets!!

 

[Jason7894561230]

Wow two years nice

 

[BigJim]

Nice picture. I don't have any plecos, but I have snails, shrimp, and cories that eat at the surface like that. It's amazing what fish can learn.

 

[Cdepriest6009]

So I have never heard of them doing that and I have had plecos over time and never seen it. Then I seen your post earlier today and thought it was kinda cool.then believe it or not when I got home this evening I fed my fish an there my pleco was after the rest of them was done he was at the top of the tank eating the leftovers. Lol

 

[WendiDell]

I've always had Plecos. A Common Pleco was the first fish we got, he was given to us. He was so great, but he started our fish addiction. His name was Eddy Fisher, we lost him last year to ick, he was a little over 14" at the time.
But before that, I used to catch him kind of floating on his back when he thought no one was watching. As soon as he noticed us watching he'd flip back over. I knew he went nuts over the flake food that fell to the bottom but, it never dawned on me he was trying to eat the flake food from the surface.
Cool pic. Thanks for the nice memory of Eddy.

 

[Cleggat]

You're very welcome!