Vampire's are true carnivores, I've been very happy with frozen chopped clams from the seafood dept. They come in a tub. The pieces vary in size, and I haven't had a vampire, L14, L024, L273 or even my L066 & L134's pass it up. I vary with live blackworms, & frozen everything else including a brine shrimp veggie mix for some fiber. Mysis shrimp too. When he gets big I use whole frozen shrimp, cheap bait variety easy to get here in FL. If u keep ur Africans water specs for African cichlids I would avoid putting a pleco in there, u may get a common pleco to adapt but the parameters aren't close to avg pleco habitat, my tanks have specific water specs to match their home rivers "biotopes"
