Myth confirmed... Plecos DO clean glass.

[Retuks]

psh my common is never seen cleaning my glass. he only eats the shrimp i drop in. lol

oh i only meant the soft brown algae. i notice a small speckled HARD green algae on my 30 in small numbers but plecos don't eat that.

i guess your plecos too big now? lol. if its a common pleco, how does it eat the shrimp? shrimp doesn't dissolve like veg. matter.

 

[Nemesis]

they can if you vary the diet of your other fish. algae takes nutrients from micro particles in the water by waste of your other fish + solar energy. so like most other things, the algae grows upon what it "eats" as well and indirectly gives your plecos are varied diet.

they survive on one type of algae in the wild all the time. but many many things flow down river to add to its nutrition content.

True they can live off a diet of just algae, but your tank would have to produce a huge amount of algae to keep a healthy/happy pleco.

 

[Retuks]

True they can live off a diet of just algae, but your tank would have to produce a huge amount of algae to keep a healthy/happy pleco.

im good for that then .

tropical weathers a beach.. when it comes to algae.

 

[Peanut_Power]

they can if you vary the diet of your other fish. algae takes nutrients from micro particles in the water by waste of your other fish + solar energy. so like most other things, the algae grows upon what it "eats" as well and indirectly gives your plecos are varied diet.

they survive on one type of algae in the wild all the time. but many many things flow down river to add to its nutrition content.

If you can replicated enough algae in the home environment to feed even ONE pleco, you are doing amazingly well. Without other supplemental foods, your pleco WILL die.

And to get the type of environment where algae would grow sufficiently to feed a pleco would most likely be detrimental to the plecos health, let alone the other fish that are in there with it. You might as well count out water changes cuz that would remove many of those nutrients which the algae needs to grow.

Plus, you can't just lump all plecos in the same category. There are some that are mainly herbivorous, such as the panaques and bristlenose, and others that are more carnivorous. The problem is people get a pleco and automatically assume it will clean the algae from your tank, and subsequently end up starving their fish to death. A very slow, agonizing death.

 

[Swampster]

Agreed, Peanut_Power. Plecos are not what I consider a cleanup crew by any means.

 

[Fishermoe14]

they are awesome i have plecos in all my tanks lol never scrub...

anyways.. i breed bristlenose plecos and they are prolific algae eaters.. i feed them wafers and fresh veggies..

the common i keep with my piranhas is doing just fine eating pellets and shrimp

 

[Retuks]

If you can replicated enough algae in the home environment to feed even ONE pleco, you are doing amazingly well. Without other supplemental foods, your pleco WILL die.

And to get the type of environment where algae would grow sufficiently to feed a pleco would most likely be detrimental to the plecos health, let alone the other fish that in there with it. You might as well count out water changes cuz that would remove many of those nutrients which the algae needs to grow.

Plus, you can't just lump all plecos in the same category. There are some that are mainly herbivorous, such as the panaques and bristlenose, and others that are more carnivorous. The problem is people get a pleco and automatically assume it will clean the algae from your tank, and subsequently end up starving their fish to death. A very slow, agonizing death.

i know! horrible of those people to assume that!. lol.
hmm, odd. i do w/c weekly and algae still grows. its the white on white lanai my tank is in, surrounded by windows and a direct beam of sun from the hours of 7am - 3pm by which time the room is only very bright instead of completely beaming with direct sunlight.

I actually thought of a way to feed algae eating plecos that don't get tank algae as well.
i had 4 buckets outside with mosquito fish and azolla that came naturally. it was under shelter but the sun still got to it and all buckets loaded with algae.

i was thinking if you can bring in one of those buckets weekly and attach a tube (like ships to on space flicks), you can let the pleco smell it out for itself and swim into the tube, into the bucket. eat all the algae, and when its done, the tank would have grown some algae slightly so it swims back into the main tank. and you replace the bucket back outside with a new one.

 

[zerojquan85]

I agree with the mod about certain pleco will clean up.. and certain ones dont..

An example is my Chocolate pleco.. this guys is the best clean up fish in my 150gallon.. My Royal pleco. not so much... My two Green and Blue phantom.. sometimes.. blue phantom more..

But by far the BEST clean up fish.. Fei Feng.... they will go anywhere in the tank and clean up anything.. even algae growing on driftwood..

 

[festerfish]

i was thinking the myth of spelling out pleco,the whole word any one out there want to walk under a latter

 

[Noddy]

4 of my plecos are very lazy and never seem to clean anything.
Got one Hypostomus that does all the work, but only makes snail-trails on the windows.
Got one Sturisoma doing the glass in the other tank.
But window cleaning is mostly my own job!