Pleco damaging artificial decorations?

[HarleyK]

Howdy,

I have been toying with the idea of artificial rocks. But my plecos have been grinding on triple coated PVC pipes, and they have rubbed off all three layers of Krylon fusion paint. I just visited the public aquarium in Chicago and saw damage to their interior, I assume it was this pleco. Any other experiences with plecos and decorations? Thanks, HarleyK.

 

[HarleyK]

 

[Fishburner]

When my daughter was very young, she picked out those fluorescent colored ceramic castles for her tank. I eventually got a small Adonis Pleco and in a few months, I noticed the castle loosing its color, but not fading, just loosing color in patches. I came to the conclusion that the pleco was probably rasping at it. I removed the castling fearing that whatever dyes or chemical from the paint may have harmed the place or will cause issues later on if I kept the castle in there. It's now been a couple years past and the place is still alive and growing (slowly, but growing). And we still have the castle, just not in an aquarium setting anymore.

 

[duanes]

Many plecos, gnaw on wood, and may be an important part of their diet, but I don´t think they distinguish between actual wood, and other surfaces when gnawing on it.
Mine (Chaetostoma, and Sturomatichthys), leave a kind of saw dust, refuse on the substrate, so I believe there is some benefit, to providing real sucken wood, as opposed to just faux pieces.


I do believe it provides some digestive benafits, and where I often collect them, they are found among branches, and fallen leaf litter.

I suppose I could easily vac it up, but don´t bother as it may feed th plnts in the sump, as it breaks down.

 

[benzjamin13]

I feel like all Plecos need something to rasp on regardless of specific species. I noticed a sponge filter developing "craters" in my quarantine tank. I thought maybe because the filter was getting old, but It's never happened to any of the other sponge filters that were being used and they were all set up around the same time. Then I thought how the last couple of fish I quarantined were a Three Beacon Pleco and a Phantom Pleco.

 

[TwoHedWlf]

I've never really noticed any significant amount of damage to anything in the tank from plecs. But it probably depends on a lot of factors, mostly what I have is big driftwood and rocks. If the big guy I've got is doing any damage it's going to take decades to notice in the wood.

 

[HarleyK]

I'm totally fine with plecos eating my driftwood, matter of fact, I got a few plecos for just that reason: I noticed my driftwood is getting soft spots. They cleaned it up.

I'm more worried about them eating synthetic materials. That's why I DIY'ed the protector around my sponge filter. They were eating it. And in the background, you see the PVC pipes where they're rasped off.

 

[jjohnwm]

My biggest concern in this regard was the potential damage that plecos could do to the epoxy coating that lines the interior of my (mostly plywood) tanks. The owner of one of Toronto's premier aquarium shops...back in the 1970's, that is...warned me about this issue and showed my such damage on a large tank in his shop. For years I fretted and worried about it, and kept relatively few plecos as a result.

A few (!) years have now passed and I've never seen any such damage in any of my tanks. But I think this may be due to the fact that all my tanks always have a fair bit of driftwood in them. Why would a pleco rasp and grind on a smooth plastic/epoxy face when its naturally-preferred material was always at hand? I've had numerous large chunks of driftwood ground down and rasped away by big plecos; sometimes they turned gnarled pieces with lots of character into smooth uninteresting poles; other times they would start on a thick heavy stump and eventually turn it into a convoluted mess of channels and cavities. I never paid much attention to which individual fish seemed to exhibit the most artistic ability; probably should have watched for that.

IMHO, plecos should not be kept in tanks without at least some wood for them to practice on. To me, failing to provide them with that is much like keeping Geophagus or Goldfish without any substrate to sift through, or perhaps keeping nocturnal and reclusive catfish with no cover or shelters in which to secrete themselves. It is such a simple way to cater to the fish's natural behaviour; why on earth would a keeper fail to do so?

Don't like substrate? Then don't keep substrate-sifters. Don't care for driftwood? Then don't keep fish that want to chew on it. Don't like decor at all? Then don't keep lurkers and hiders. Seems obvious.

 

[benzjamin13]

Agreed about keeping driftwood with Plecos. There should always be drfitwood for them to rasp on. After the craters on the sponge filter, I've since adding driftwood to the quarantine tank. On another note, I've also noticed a speed in growth when driftwood was added.

 

[phreeflow]

I’ve only ever had issues with panaque and panaqulos species turning everything to dust or with hypostomus species rasping on stuff to a lesser extent and causing light wear or discoloration.

Never had issues with carnivorous or more omnivorous species like hypancistrus, peckoltia, pseudacanthicus, scobiancristrus, leporacanthicus, etc