Plecos: Do they ever DO anything?

[zeropt99]

I've got a 6" Plecosthemus in my 55 gallon tank. I rescued him from my friend's overcrowded 10 gallon about 2 months ago.

I never get to see him out, and he makes an enormous amount of waste. There's no algae in my tank for him to clean either, so I feed him those algae wafers.

I only took him on to get him out of the situation he was in, but now I'm wanting somewhere else to take him, cause the only results I see of him are a big pile of fish poop around the cave where he hides all day.

Everyone has plecos it seems... but do they ever actually do anything interesting? He won't come out until it's too dark to see him moving around in there!

[Heather]

I've had several plecos since I've been keeping fish and they are like you said quite boring. If you want a little more info and them and their behavior click on this link: I hope this helps. If not be sure and post and let us know!! fishprofiles.com/profiles/fw/profile.asp?id=Hypostomus+plecostomus

[SaraEvans1Fan]

Mine is about 3 inches long,He and my otto keep my 55 gallon free of algae.Those 2 keep the glass spotless and my kissing gouramies keep all the decos. clean.

[CoyoteAnnath]

Plecos are nocturnal. So they are most active when the lights are off. Mine usually hangs out on the glass but occasionally will get riled up and shoot around the tank. If you want to give him stuff to do, get some driftwood. They will hang out on it, cleaning all the little crevices. They love lightly boiled broccoli stems and can be fun to watch them chow down on those. We also found that the snails we use in the other tanks tend to get algae on their shells. Pop them in with the Pleco and he will have them cleaned and polished within an hour. Our pleco is just over a foot long and aside from the poop he just looks neat stuck to the tank glass. Now if I could just find a fish that lives on pleco poop......

[lighter]

Watch them in the dark and see how alive they are!