Pleco Feedings

[starsplitter7]

I am about to write a short article on feeding all types of Pleco like fish -- I mean algae eaters like regular plecos, Bristlenoses, gibbys, otos, whiptails . . .

What I would like to know is: what do you feed your plecos and how often? How big are your Plecos? What kind of algae eaters do you keep? (If you know the scientific name and the common name -- that would be great).

Thanks.

[Diana]

General conditions and care:
Planted tanks. Most have fairly soft water (GH and KH around 4-5 degrees), and temperature varies from room temp to 80*F. Whenever I could ID a Loricariad (Planet Catfish) I would try to put it in the tank with the right temperature.
All tanks have driftwood, or bark, usually of hardwood trees. (Quercus douglasi or lobata, Lagerstroemia indica, and Arctostaphyllos mostly)
Feeding includes a wide range of flakes, pellets and wafers based on whole fish and shellfish, spirulina and other algae with a minimum of grain, and never fish meal. frozen and fresh foods including vegetables (cooked until barely tender), and home made food that usually falls apart as the fish attack it. For a slow eating rasping fish this frozen food is probably not the best.
Unless I directly saw a fish eating any of these foods I have no idea which fish liked or did not like any specific food. Usually I would find the Loricariads latched onto the vegetables and wafers. They would also work on shrimp pellets pretty well. The ones that eat algae would usually work on the flat stuck on sorts including diatoms, but would not usually eat hairy or stringy sorts of algae. I do not know that any eat Cyanobacteria.
Many of them would keep the wood polished, but the wood never seemed to get smaller, suggesting that the fish were eating something growing on the wood, and ingesting just a tiny amount of the wood almost by accident. I did notice that the mottled pattern on the Lagerstroemia went away, as if it was being eaten. Other Loricariads really are wood eaters, and I would suggest offering a couple of different woods in the tank.

I have tried keeping quite a few of the reasonably priced Loricariads, and found that some lived a long time, but others were almost impossible.

Gold Nugget: I know there are at least 3 species (L-numbers) and I do not know which I had. They all died within a month. I offered a wide range of foods, but none of them made it.

Farlowellas, probably F. acus, but who knows? Thrived in tanks with driftwood, and the driftwood was kept clean. Were they eating the wood itself? Or something growing on the wood?

Sturisoma nigrirostris: Discus tank (80*F) with driftwood, and the Sturisoma kept the driftwood clean. Same Q as the Farlowella

Royal Pleco, One of the striped Panaque like P. nigrolineatus, but mine did not have red eyes. He ate Oak bark. In just a couple of years he pared it down from 1' diameter x 2"+ thick, and very lumpy to such a thin sheet that it fell apart one day when I moved it to clean behind.

Pekoltia sold as Clown Plecos and Candystripe P. maccus? Definitely wood eating fish. Most memorable one would hang out on the underside of a driftwood arch, and I was always vacuuming brown poop that sure looked like digested wood. Success was spotty with these, some living for a few years, others not surviving very long.

Bristlenose: Albino, Harlequin and regular Bristlenose, all lived on any sort of flat algae, vegetables and whatever else was in the tanks. I still see them now and then, cleaning away... They do not eat black brush algae.
I think I have more than one species, the pattern of bristles is different.
A different BN, the squat almost triangular one. A. ranunculus? Did not live long.

Otos: Love brown algae (Diatoms) and will attempt almost any sort of flat algae. Also like vegetables. Especially fond of green beans, cut French style, so the fish can get at the tender part first.

Zebra Oto O cocama I am almost sure this one ate some staghorn algae, also similar to the regular Otos, all sorts of algae and vegetables.

Rineloricaria sp. Great algae eaters in a cool to medium temperature tank, not as small as Otos, so not for nano tanks, but great in tanks from about 15 gallons and up. I have not seen them eating wood, though one of mine hangs out on the driftwood, occasionally, so I cannot rule it out. They do eat vegies.

Others:
Queen Arabesque? Black with very fine white stipling, like a brindle colored dog, but much denser. I have no idea what this one eats, but I keep seeing it hanging on to the driftwood.

Gold with charcoal spots. Look at the back of TFH, Nov. 2010. The one on the left. Again, I have no idea what he ate, but he lived for a long time, hiding in the back of the tank. This one was very fond of eating floating fish food, too, and would swim upside down at the top of the tank to eat flakes.

"Regular" or "common": Albino, the typical dark black/charcoal with lighter banding or mottling and another one sold as common, but closer to solid black with minimum of banding, leaner than the usual 'common' : These have lived the longest in the tanks, and have kept them clean of algae, kept the driftwood polished. In my experience they have not latched on to the sides of flat sided fish, but I feed an abundance of food, including carnivore wafers that may have given these guys the protein they needed. Some of these would also swim at the top of the tank to get flake foods.
These guys do get large, so I have quit buying them, after returning more than one to the LFS.

[starsplitter7]

Thanks Diana. That is simply fantastic. You really keep an eye on your fish. I have fish I never see eating. I know they are eating, because they are fat or are growing. I figure they are cleaning up the left overs after I have gone to bed.

[Diana]

Over time, I eventually see almost every fish eating something, but many of the Plecos are quite reclusive, so I do not see them often.
In the case of most of the herbivorous species some lightly cooked vegetables are the best bait to bring them out into the open.

Farlowellas and Sturisomas are camouflage fish, hiding by pretending to be sticks (Thus the common name, 'Stick Fish') so looking for them is easy: Scan the driftwood. They spend 90% of their time on the wood. They may hang under it, or rest on top.