pleco question

[fishdude07]

can plecos survive on eating just algae?

 

[Lotus]

It depends on what kind of pleco and what kind of algae.

If it is an algae eating pleco, and has the right kind of algae, it's sort of like asking if you could survive eating only pizza. It can survive, but it may not be healthy.

 

[SLO-Dean]

don't know if I want to find out. I give mine some zucchini, other than that he does survive on algae, or whatever he gets off the leaves of my plantrs, I suspect he does eat soem of the plants also.
I do drop in an occasional algae wafer (or disc).

 

[Kyle]

You may not feed your pleco and think that he is living off of algae, but most of the time that isn't true. Lots of times they will eat flakes, granules, ect. that fall to the bottom. Most plecs can survive off of algae when they are young, but as they get larger you should throw a little extra food in for them to eat, they can eat algae very quickly and end up having no food source. For instance when I put my plec from the pond to an algea covered 29 gallon he will completely clean the whole tank spottless of algea within a day or two.

 

[fishdude07]

thanks for the replies. i was just curious because i drop shrimp pellets in my 55 gallon tank for my plecos but they dont get to eat many of them because my oscar usually gets to them first