What Do You Feed Your Pleco?

[Maehlice]

I have two plecos, a "common" (P. Pardalis) and a gold nugget.  I try to feed all my fish a variety of different foods, so I'm interested to know what all you guys have had success feeding your plecos.
 
I have a long light cycle to encourage algae growth in the tank.  Apart from that, I feed algae wafers, romaine lettuce, peas and raisins.
 
What do your plecos enjoy eating, and is there anything they will assault right as it enters the tank?

 

[m00ms]

raisins is a new one to me,do you have to do anything to them or just drop them in ?
 
i have a little young green phantom pleco which is fussy as with food and is only eating noyo and flake at the moment,few times hes shown interest in cucumber theres been to much activity around it by my panda garras for him.
 
hope he will get taste for cucumber soon.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Mine love courgette (zucchini) but they eat some of everything that all of the other fish get as well - I make sure to give them a couple of large algae wafers a week as well

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Plecos do not eat just one diedt. There are many different species of pleco but dietwise they fall into one of four categories:
 
Aufwuchs feeders
Carnivores
Wood eaters
Omnivores
 
One of the biggest causes of pleco ill health and death is due to improper diet.
 
The plecos which specialize in each of the different diets will have different mouth sizes and much different dentition which is often a key in identifying them.

 

[Maehlice]

raisins is a new one to me,do you have to do anything to them or just drop them in ?

 
I drop a few of them into the tank every morning.  By evening, they're rehydrated and soft.  By next morning, they're all gone and the cycle repeats.
 
I've only ever witnessed first-hand the GN pleco eating them, but I can tell the big pleco and one of the clown loaches are eating them overnight.
 

There are many different species of pleco but dietwise they fall into one of four categories:

 
How can one know into which category their pleco falls?  Everything I've read about commons and GNs says they fall into all of those categories.  

 

[AshleyT]

When I use to have a a large plec it use to eat cichlids floating pellets what I use to put in for my convict

 

[coolie]

Mine eats Spirulina granula food which sinks as well at catfish pellets.

 

[LoachLover!]

Mine get their algae wafers a couple of times a week, bloodworms once a week/once a fortnight and then they're now having a variety of veg including sweet potato, zucchini and cucumber

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Well I have Ingos book which helps a lot- Back to Nature Guide to L-Catfish. here are genera he puts into each category in his book.
 
Aufwuchs feeders: Baryancistrus, Chaetostoma, Many Ancistrus, Pseudancistrus, Guiancistrus, Lasinacistrus, Hoplinacistrus, Zonancidtrus and a few more h doesn't list.
 
Omnivores: Peckoltia, Hypancistrus, Ancistomus and Parancistrus
 
Wood eaters: Panaque, PanaQolusCochliodon (the Hypostomuscochliodon group)
 
Carnivores: Scobinancistrus, Spectracanthicus, Leporacanthicus and Pseudacanthicus
 
Ingo specifically mentions golden nuggets as Aufwuchs feeders and needing to be fed several times (at least twice) a day." He suggests foods that last a while and are of the vegetable nature- lettuce, spinach, cucumber, zuchinni, sweet peppers, carrot ,potato and many more. Weigh it down so they can feed off it multiple times during the day. Occasionally feed live or frozen small crustaceans or insect larvae.

 

[Tongue_Flicker]

Live and dried tubifex worms, sinking pellets, boiled lettuce and boiled carrots