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I have a young L18 or L85 gold nugget in my planted tank and the pleco has adjusted well and seems to be thriving. However his (or her) activity on the sword plants is leaving damage. While not really eating the entire leaf--- a thin layer of material is being taken off. There is driftwood in the tank and I can see the results of feeding on the wood also, but the pleco really seems more intent on rasping off a layer of plant material from the swords and spends more time doing this then on the wood. I am feeding Hikari pleco sinking wafers, simple algae wafers, and shrimp pelets but have never seen the pleco have interest. Also tried parboiled courgette without interest. The pleco seems very happy and content to rasp nutrition from the swords... Is the pleco ready to go to save the plants? is this normal behavior in a gold nugget? I am finding conflicting info about gold nuggets with plants on the web. My experience is telling me this fish is in fact harmful to plants. Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated as I am new to pleco's.

You probably need to supply more vegetable food - try raw courgette, and leave it in the tank for about a day. If no interest, try again the next day. You may also try some lettuce leaves. Mine (L177, but still similar) certainly liked rasping the outer skin on courgette.

Eating plants is a clear sign of "not enough other food available". But it can take a bit to "break the habit".

Have a look at the Feeding Pleco Part 1 article (linked on the right of my post).

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Mats

Also try Yams, my Baryancistrus can't seem to resist yams. They also seem to definitely prefer the skin of raw zucchini (courgette).

There are lots of fish that like lots of different vegetables - try different things. I would just like to point out that Gary's Baryancistrus is which likes a more meaty diet than the average Baryancistrus species. Gold nuggets should be fed mainly vegetable diet.

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Mats

[mod edit:Jools: fixed incorrect clog tag]

My L177 also prefers the skin of raw courgette. Potatoes or peppers will work, too. Cucumber will be eaten too, but this decomposes very quickly and can cause problems because of that. I provide fresh veggies every other day. As long as they have vegetables more or less constantly available they will leave the plants alone.

Echinodorus seem to be VERY tasty, so whenever I was away for a few days, they were basically gone when I got back. So I gave up and removed them from the tank. Other plants were fine. Vallisneria, Nymphaea (water lilly), Anubia were all left alone. As were most of the small, delicate plants that cannot support the weight of a larger pleco.

my l81 seems to enjoy both cucumber and mango both. I dont have any problems with it hurtin my swords that i can tell, buti make sure i has plenty of other food too.

Ok, I won't give up yet and I just put in a piece of raw courgette sliced with plenty of skin and shaped like a sword leaf. I have no problem trying different vegetables but Mango??? This would be exciting for my wife who uses these often. How can mango be used ? are we talking about the skin?

Thanks
Steve

I've fed mango on many occasions. Just cut a long "slice", skin and fruit itself - the skin is probably not edible to fish. The skin holds together quite well. I've put just about anything you can think of in the way of fruits and vegetables in the tank. Most aren't particularly appreciated by the fish, and my favourites are still courgette, sweet potato and mango. Gives good variation, and easy to find in shops etc.

And I wouldn't worry too much about matching the shape of anything else when introducing courgette to the fish - I'm sure the fish isn't using the shape of the swords to determine that they are edible/tasty.

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Mats

Thanks Matts, I did the shape thing just to do whatever I could to help get this fish off the swords.... I don't know what my LFS fed the gold nugget's but there was driftwood in the tank. From the time this fish hit my tank he went right to the swords so he must have been hungry. Anyway we have courgette, sweet potato's or yams, and mango so hopefully this fish will start getting off the plant as food thing. I also hope to post a pic of this fish as his banding is yellow and somewhat narrow but his spots are small, numerous, and really look more white. Would like to see if we can narrow the L # down. Steve

The funny part is that none of my plecos in my 125 gallon (Panaque, Baryancistrus, Hemiancistrus, Hypans) touch the Echinodorus, but in my 15 gallon, my juvie L066 just gnaw it up. They are both heavily planted and I fed just about the same food, but the L066 don't touch the yams, barely touch the zucchini, but really go after my sword plants.

This is an update about my gold nugget pleco. The LFS has gotten identity from the breeder as L81 and it really does resemble the pic 's on this site. It does however love my swords and will not leave them alone. It has scraped off leaf material from every plant and showed no intention of stopping even with courgett yam and mango being offered. The only way to stop the destruction going on constantly in the tank was removing the plants or the fish. Since the tank had become beautifully planted I had to remove the fish. (I believe the swords will recover somewhat after a time.) He is now very happy in a cave in a non planted tank and feasting on algae on rocks. He still will not eat anything else being put in the tank yet including courgett, yam and mango. Looking at the data sheet here on L81, this pleco may also be more inclined to eat foods other than vegtables from time to time and so far no interest shown for these other foods. For future reference --- is there a small type of pleco that will fit better into a planted tank and never eat leaves???

For future reference --- is there a small type of pl*co that will fit better into a planted tank and never eat leaves???

Otocinclus, Hisonotus, Parotocinclus, Hypoptopoma, Nannoptopoma are all small & would fit into a well established planted tank. Some species from these genera tend to be available (in the UK at least)

"breeder"? Surely you mean "wholesaler", "importer", "exporter" or some such, as the number of people actually breeding these fishes is in the 1-5 number range. I've heard of two or three spawnings, and not all of them are substantiated.

I'm sure if you are persistant, it will eventually go eat your vegetables.

There are plenty of plecos that DO go well in planted tanks. Being fairly small is a primary criteria, as larger plecos nearly always cause problem with "bulldozering" the plants to form it's own paths in the tank.

Second, they should not be too much of a rheophilic (stream loving) species, as lots of current will not work with plants.

Thirdly, the species should not "eat" plants, obviously.

This still leaves a huge number of species, and it's then up to matching with your current setup with regards to tank mates, water parameters, at least temperature - and of course "what you like".

As a general rule, these will go well in planted tanks:
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As for "suitable for planted tanks", even if we ignore the current problem if eating your plants, I'd say gold nuggets and planted tanks don't go that well together - as they "fail" the "fairly small" criteria - they may not grow very quickly, but they eventually get to 8-10".

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Mats

I have had quite a lot of experience with plecos and planted tanks lately, and IMO, the only two types which I have experience that don't hurt soft leaved plants are Ancistrus and Otocinclus. Everything else eventually starts to see your plants as salad. My L066 ate through all the lower leaves of my Echinodorus even though they are Hypans and I was feeding fresh veggies like yams and zucchini consistently. So much so that I removed the plant because it was getting ugly. It is now recovering nice in my 125 gallon.

And I don't agree 100% with plants not fitting in with high flow. I think it depends a lot on the setup, after all rooted plants can do very well in high flow setups. However, high flow setups generally mean fish which require high oxygenation and THAT may not be compatible with planted tanks -- at night. I am revising all my densely planted tanks with which have fish requiring more oxygen and putting in airstones/venturi systems as the fish gain in size (they don't seem to be bothered much when smaller). If nothing else, it's good insurance.

I realized after I posted that supplier not breeder should have been used. Some of the fish the LFS receives are captive bred but some like cory's and pleco's are imported. I do keep oto's in the aquarium without a problem to the plants. Ancistrus is another type of pleco that may be readily available in my area. I am just wondering how much one can count on a type of pleco ( besides oto's) to never eat any plants. The support on this site is awesome and much appreciated.

My common ancistrus have decimated the 2 large anubias in my tanganyikan display tank. Of course the synos eat most of the deliberately offered food but i do feed some pellets that the synos really don't take to for the ancistrus. They ate all the algae but i notice it seems to be coming back (too much light recently)