is it okay for plecos to chew on silicone?

[PGJE]

In my 150 gallon tank My pleco enjoys chewing on pretty much anything rubbery, such as the air tube on the bubbler and, mainly the silicone. Just wondering if it's okay for him to do that (in case he eats any of it), and if it's okay for the tank.

 

[Warborg]

Short term it should be fine. There could be some algae or slime coating it. Long term; no. Keep an eye on it.

 

[PGJE]

What should i do? he tends to do it pretty much every day.

 

[tlindsey]

What should i do? he tends to do it pretty much every day.

The Pleco is probably just sucking off the algae and bio film. Do you feed your Pleco?

 

[PGJE]

The Pleco is probably just sucking off the algae and bio film. Do you feed your Pleco?

yep. I feed him zuchini / algae wafers, typical pleco food

 

[fishhead0103666]

Have you tried lettuce? I just recently found out that my rhino pleco enjoys lettuce very much, more so than my silver dollars...

 

[Drstrangelove]

I used to leave my plecos a large batch of spinach, kale, lettuce, etc. attached to a piece of slate and it would spend days around it grazing as opposed to scavenging around the tank for tiny batches of algae. (Imagine, 8-10 large spinach leaves.) Generally speaking, they always had food around, so there wasn't a lot of searching for algae.

In photos I've seen of them in the wild, there is plenty of vegetation, so while it's nice housekeeping that they scratch around for a bit of algae, ime, they'll leave it alone if you leave a large "salad" in the tank every few days. Eventually, when my wood pieces or rockwork accumulated enough algae on their own, it would clean that off and go back to the slate.

 

[RD.]

I feed him zuchini / algae wafers, typical pleco food

Typical food for pleco's that are herbivores, not so typical for species that are more omnivorous, as an example L014's. So as far as a staple it depends what you are keeping, and also how much silicone it is consuming. I wouldn't worry about a little bit being consumed, as others said it's probably only scraping off the biofilm.

 

[PGJE]

Typical food for pleco's that are herbivores, not so typical for species that are more omnivorous, as an example L014's. So as far as a staple it depends what you are keeping, and also how much silicone it is consuming. I wouldn't worry about a little bit being consumed, as others said it's probably only scraping off the biofilm.

It's a common pleco, so herbivore?

 

[RD.]

Common pleco is a bit of catch all for Hypostomus plecostomus, which can include more than one species/location, but basically an omnivore that appreciates aquatic plant matter.

https://www.planetcatfish.com/common/species.php?species_id=580