Do Plecos Actually Eat Wood?

[fishnovice]

Have a large piece of dark wood in my tank where L001 lives cos I heard on this forum that plecs need wood. After a few months, the wood seems to have lost half of its surface and changed colour from dark to whiteish. Has the pleco eaten all the bark and is this normal pleco behaoviour? If it is normal happens when there is no more bark left - will he eat the rest of the wood or do I have to replace ir with a fresh piece? Wood is so expensive and I like the look of my current wood centrepiece.

 

[holidayinn]

Not sure, but I would think the wood is just degrading possibly. Similar thing happening to my wood, but I have no plecs in that tank. Have you tried taking the wood out and giving it a clean?

Plecs use the wood to add fibre to their diets. But I'm not sure they eat it or just suck/chew at it.

Hopefully a fellow poster can clear up these queries.

 

[shelaghfishface]

i think they just suck the living daylights out if it.. like holiday said they need it in theyre diets, but quite honestly im not sure why or what part of what they suck off they use
be interesting to find out tho

 

[Ben M]

i'm pretty sure that they eat it, apparently it's good for them.

 

[indigoj]

Some plecs do actually rasp the wood and eat it. Others rasp wood for the aufwuchs that lives/grows on it, others just like having something to rasp on.

Even wood eating plecs would take a long time to wear away a large piece of wood.

I would imagine yours is just degrading a bit in the water, was it bought as suitable for in an aquarium? if it degrades too much you may need to replace it with something harder like mopani.

 

[fishnovice]

Some plecs do actually rasp the wood and eat it. Others rasp wood for the aufwuchs that lives/grows on it, others just like having something to rasp on.

Even wood eating plecs would take a long time to wear away a large piece of wood.

I would imagine yours is just degrading a bit in the water, was it bought as suitable for in an aquarium? if it degrades too much you may need to replace it with something harder like mopani.

The wood came with a 2nd hand tank I bought on Ebay. Had been in that tank for a while with no sign of deterioration when I got it. The wood is finenot rotting or crumbling, it's just the surface that's been removed in places. Sounds like it's the plec that's removing it then as he's pretty big 8in.

 

[kbod]

my bn plecs rasp constantly one the wood ,im led to it helps them digest their food ive seen what they do to their veggies makes them looks like its been gnawed at but i have a few different wood types in a few tanks and they havent wrecked any yet ..however ive noticed the darker softer wood doesnt hold up as well in a tank like some of the other types in fact you can pick at it quite easily and ive got this in plec free tanks too so my bet is its the wood just getting softer ..