Feeding Plecos

[jonclark96]

Like many of my CCA friends at the Catfish Convention this past weekend, I was drawn into the world of fancy plecos. I picked up a group of 4 L-066's, all around 1.5". I currently have them in a 10 gallon tank, bare bottomed with a few caves, stones, fake plants, and driftwood pieces.

I am a newcomer to keeping plecos as THE fish in a tank. I've always had BN's as a "clean up crew" in a tank, but I never thought much about specifically feeding them. They do well feeding off algae and left over food from feeding the cichlids in the tank. My question is how do folks effectively feed their grow out plecos? I dropped some pellets in the tank so far, and maybe they are eating them after the lights go out, but there certainly isn't any mad dash to eat when the food goes in the tank. I have some Repashy that I'm going to mix up to feed this week, so we will see how that goes.

I'd love to hear what other techniques folks are using in the club.

 

[rsretep]

Hey Jon

I have always used raw zucchini or squash cut into quarters. I use a lead plant weight to hold it down but have used rocks with said veg. attached with a rubber band. Have read about people blanching veggies first but I never had a problem with the "raw" technique
Good luck brotha

 

[Beeman]

Mine have been 'first responders' to algae based sinking discs. Also, the Repashy soilent green disappears in no time.

 

[Frank Cowherd]

THere are many types of plecos/ancistrus. Some eat meat, some eat wood, some eat veges. Most eat a bit of each and the young probably need a bit more protein despite what the adults eat.

To figure out what to feed them you have to look at their teeth. But that is hard to do as far as i am concerned. It is better to look up the fish in a book or on the internet and see what they say. Planet Catfish is a good place to look, they list the fish by genus and basically all fish in the same genus eat the same foods.

 

[hollyfish2000]

I've had BN plecos go after bloodworms! I also feed algae wafers and cucumber slidces attached with a veggie clip to the side of the tank -- also a good technique to draw them out so I can do a head count.

 

[jonclark96]

Thanks for the input. The Back to Nature Guide to L-Catfishes lists the L-066's as Omnivores, feeding on pretty much anything. I'll give the veggies a try this week.

 

[verbal]

The Hypancistrus species are generally carnivorous. I would go with Meat Pie Repashy for them.

You may want to add some substrate. It may be an old wives tale, but it seems that Plecos for some reason are more successful in tanks with substrate.

Driftwood is also a good idea with Hypancistrus. Another thing is they like a higher temperature(high 70s or low 80s).

 

[Avatar]

Research rules

Both species groups that I picked up are Hypancistrus - literature says that they prefer proteinaceous foods like bloodworms which is a far cry from zucchini. Frank is right - need to look it up.

 

[jonclark96]

I did look it up and I'm assuming the Back to Nature guide is reliable. It says a variety of food is preferred, both plant and animal based. I've fed higher protein pellets so I thought I'd give the veggies a try as well.

 

[chriscoli]

I have a dedicated set of really cheap metal forks that I use to feed zucchinis....just stab them on the tines and let it sink. So far my favorite method. Of course, I get lazy and don't take them out till I do my next waterchange....I had some very confused houseguests over recently asking (with a very worried look on their faces) why the forks were in the tank.

I gave my new hypancistrus some shrimp pellets last night and they were completely gone this morning. I'll give the meat pie a try next.

 

[scientist0724]

THere are many types of plecos/ancistrus. Some eat meat, some eat wood, some eat veges. Most eat a bit of each and the young probably need a bit more protein despite what the adults eat.

To figure out what to feed them you have to look at their teeth. But that is hard to do as far as i am concerned. It is better to look up the fish in a book or on the internet and see what they say. Planet Catfish is a good place to look, they list the fish by genus and basically all fish in the same genus eat the same foods.

I have different types of of plecos.

My BNs love the Repashy Foods. They go after Soilent Green (if you want to try some, I can give you a sample already made, since I have several packets of this stuff and make huge batches of this). They also love algae wafers, shrimp pellets, and I give them bloodworms when I want to condition them for breeding. I also take zucchini and skewer them on bamboo sticks and the clip it to the side of the tank with those veggie clips meant for reef fish that have suction cups attached to them. I grow large zucchini in my veggie garden every year just for this reason. Come see me during the summer for my bumper crop of free zucchini

I also have a breeding group of flash plecos. They eat pretty much the same stuff as the BNs, but I also provide a tankful of wood for them. I've also seen them go after the Repashy Meat Pie, but I'm careful not to give that to them too often, as it's too much protein for their diet.

Welcome to the world of plecos! I love these fish. I can't wait to a huge show tank so I can get some of the larger specimens that I've been dreaming of.

And of course, there is the L397, which is going my holy grail of plecos that I want to own one of these days if I can get my hands on them. They are not easily available in the US. Only one person in Canada has them and they are popular in Australia.

Arlene

 

[jonclark96]

Thanks for the info Arlene. Have you had luck in raising fry from the flash plecos? Could you run through your set up and the spawning process?

 

[scientist0724]

My flash plecos have not bred for me yet, but it is a breeding group.

It's a river tank, so there is tons of flow in there. I think that I need to get longer caves after talking to Jesse this weekend.

I'll let you know when I get them to breed!

Arlene

 

[todda]

my plecos love earthworm sticks from Ken's - also, try french style cut green beans w/o salt in the can. My plecos go through a can a week

 

[Tony]

For my adult L-66, I feed NLS, sinking Extreme Cat Scrapers, black worms, earthworm flake, whatever I have lying around. Here's their profile on Planet Catfish: http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=174

That is by far, my favorite resource on catfish on the net. The only major problem on the site is that if you spend too much time on there, you'll start seeing other cats you like, lol.

Congrats bud.

 

[Andrewtfw]

When I had more of a variety of fancy plecos (used to have 37 different types), I made sure I had a lot of wood in the tank. I fed spectrum cichlid sinking pellets and frozen blood worms as my "fish" food. This was a few times per week. The majority of the other days, I fed defrosted lima beans. I would microwave them enough to pop the skins off and then drop them in the tank. I occasionally used zuchini, squash, sweet potato, banana (messy), and carrot.

 

[scientist0724]

Plecos like bananas?

Who knew!

Arlene

 

[Andrewtfw]

Plecos like bananas?

Who knew!

Arlene

I bought them green and fed them to the plecos when the peel was just beginning to turn yellow. They devoured it, but it left particles throughout the water column.

 

[scientist0724]

I bought them green and fed them to the plecos when the peel was just beginning to turn yellow. They devoured it, but it left particles throughout the water column.

So do you think that plantains would work better?

Arlene

 

[Andrewtfw]

So do you think that plantains would work better?

Arlene

It can't hurt to try. Honestly, though a few of my plecos loved the bananas, the majority took little interest. Lima beans got the best result. This was great, since they are inexpensive, don't foul the water, and (out of the skin), are completely consumed by the plecos.