is pleco difficult to feed ?

[kontong]

hi i just got 2 piece of 2 to 3inches . it had been 3weeks and i hardly see them eat. Daily when i vacum the tank i didnt see any poops...starting to worry. is pleco a difficult fish to keep ? thanks

 

[ragin_cajun]

yes, it can be hard to get them to eat. Lots of em won't come out and attack a pellet/algae tab/whatever during the day with the lights on. So those will eat at night with the lights out while you're asleep--they're highly nocturnal usually. Most of 'em are wild caught, so they may not be used to eating what you're feeding them. Then they stress from shipping, so they may sit in your tank and not eat for the first couple weeks while they get acclimated. They don't usually eat like cichlids do, where you drop the pellets in and they just suck em down in a minute or so. Pleco's really like to graze all day long.

And then there's hundreds of different types of Plec's with very different diet and behavior. It's complicated.

 

[Poklei]

i drop food infront of them so no other fish steals it, algae wafers, shrimp pellets, carnivore sinking pellets. should shove driftwood in there they like to munch on it

 

[Jdreal21]

They love veggies cucumber peas I used to feed mine shrimp and algae pellets best to throw food when it's darker or in a darker part of the tank no expert just my experiences

 

[ragin_cajun]

What kind of Pleco's are they? What other fish are in teh tank with them?

 

[jaws7777]

What kind of Pleco's are they? What other fish are in teh tank with them?

Thats the most important question. Its a nightmare feeding mine because of the other fish. Had no problems feeding them in other tanks

 

[kontong]

thanks for all the assurance . They are l25 and their tank mate are 5 half inch or smaller blue eye tetra. It's so difficult to gauge if they had enough to eat.

 

[jaws7777]

What kind of plecos ? Not all of them eat veggies

 

[kontong]

What kind of plecos ? Not all of them eat veggies

L25. I tried massivore , tubifex worms and algae pellets...its starting to get frustrating. First you don't see them feeding. Second you can't see their stomach to gauge as most of their time they are hiding. I had lost many plecos..I just don't want to loose them.

 

[jaws7777]

Im not a pleco expert lost a small L600 that was feeding and never hid even in qt. Have another one that is slowly coming out more but still hides, also have a L200 that his for 6months had no idea what he was eating, then just started coming out all the time now hes always out and about. It may be a good thing that hes hiding a bit. Ive read that sometimes they take a real ling time to acclimate.

With my second L600 i used prongs to hand feed him frozen krill in the beginning. Try it