# Rubber-Lipped Pleco Prefers Terra-Cotta to Algae...



## dahlia (Aug 14, 2004)

I added a new rubber-lipped pleco to my tank and it seems bent on eating the terra cotta pot in its tank (yes, I know they are considered tacky but I needed a cave for spawning). It is a young, 2" long fish and it has been leaving terra cotta colored piles of poop amongst my gray onyx sand... very attractive. The pot now looks like it has been sandpapered, and he spends quite a bit of time shaving it down still further. I had no idea until now that their mouths were this powerful.

I have yet to see it eat actual food even after a week of obsessive observation, and I cleaned the tank too well (razor on the glass, etc.) to think it is surviving on natural algae... it skims right past algae wafers as though they aren't there. It is almost as though the fish is too clumsy to eat the wafers. When I have tried putting them on its beloved pot it knocks them off. Aren't they supposed to like algae wafers? It seems determined to find its food attached to plant leaves (temporarily plastic until I get better lights), glass, or that darned pot, though.

I also tried those natural dried seaweed sheets rubber banded to a rock, which it completely ignored. I figure I'll go buy some zucchini later today, but I'd prefer not to have to permanently stock zucchini for the rest of its existence.

Does anyone have one of these? What do you feed it?

This fish is reminding me of a cat I had once that insisted on eating the kitty box litter...


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## JanS (Apr 14, 2004)

Well, you've certainly covered all the bases I would have suggested, so this one is a toughie...

It may be (and this is the only thing I can think of) that there is some embedded algae that it's still working on. 
The other thing is that it sometimes takes them a few weeks to adjust to different foods, depending on what they were used to before you got them.
Any of the foods you've mentioned are favorites of my algae eating fish, so about all I would suggest is to put a small amount in and let him/her get used to it, then nature should take it's course.
I have the littlest of Bristlenose babies that are all over algae wafers, so it's not like they're hard to eat.


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## Osteomata (Jan 11, 2005)

I would not worry about it too much. I have a rubber lipped pleco and I rarely see him eat. If he is ignoring the algae wafer, then he is probably still acclimating. Give him time. When he gets hungry enough, he will stop ignoring the wafer. Also, I believe they need/like to rasp there suckers/mouth, and maybe his former environment did not give him the opportinuety to do so, and he is making up for lost time.


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## dahlia (Aug 14, 2004)

Thanks! He just started eating today... which was funny because I was getting worried enough to try posting in another forum, and the MOMENT I finished submitting my post he decided to eat the frozen (dethawed) algae I'd dropped in the tank over an hour ago. 

Perhaps he really was "filing" his rasp/sucker, because he seemed overjoyed with the terra cotta pot and spent 80% of his time sucking on it obsessively for almost 2 weeks. He would also visit the glass and plants and try those a bit as well. I'm glad to see him scavenging the bottom finally.


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