Royal Pleco is a nice and large freshwater fish and they are a great choice for many Aquarists because they are both peaceful but territorial and could hide a lot and they also help with tank cleaning. They love being kept with a large number of plants or vegetation and they live among vegetation in the wild. One of the reasons many hobbyists shy away from keeping these fish is because they are suspected to eat plants and could destroy plants, but the question you might be interested too as is, Do they eat plants as alleged? You will find out in this article and many more related questions you might be interested to know about these fish.
Does Royal Pleco eat plants? Yes, Royal Pleco is more herbivores than carnivores because they eat more plants than meat.
As I always say, every fish is different from each other in one way or another.
Despite that almost all fish are omnivores, meaning that they could eat both plants and meat, some are more carnivores than herbivores and some are herbivores than carnivores.
Royal Pleco is vegetation-dwelling freshwater fish and they are more interested in plants than in meat, so they eat so many plants.
If you are wondering if they could eat plants, well, it’s true. They eat plants and they eat a lot of them.
Do Royal Pleco Destroy Plants?
Knowing that they could eat plants, you might be wondering if they could destroy plants.
Does Royal Pleco destroy plants? Royal Pleco is known to destroy aquarium plants by eating them.
As I mentioned above in this article, many hobbyists shy away from keeping these fish in their freshwater tanks, not because they are aggressive but because they could destroy your costly aquarium plants.
Being addicted to eating aquarium plants and hiding in both them and the caves, they usually eat them whenever they want to.
To make matters worst, they are nocturnal fish and normally do the eating at night and because of that, you can hardly see them do it and can’t stop them but will only see the damages they did in the morning.
So, Royal Pleco destroys plants.
What Plants Are Good With Plecos?
Despite that they could destroy aquarium plants, they like planted tanks they can’t do without plants in their environment.
What you might be wondering is, which plants are suitable for them and should be kept in their tanks.
Well, my only advice is to keep the type of plants that could grow very quickly so that they don’t die easily when they are been eaten by the fish constantly and also keep more of them.
If you want to know the types of plants that are suitable for them, then here are my recommended aquarium plants for them.
Amazon Sword.
Anubias.
Java Fern.
Java Moss.
Jungle Vallisneria.
The truth is, it’s either you mix all the plants in one tank and in larger numbers or you buy only one of them but in larger numbers too so that they won’t be able to destroy all the plants.
Do Royal Pleco Eat Algae?
Royal Pleco is a herbivore’s fish, they eat a lot of plants including algae.
Earlier in this article, I mentioned that they help with aquarium cleaning.
This is because they are great algae eaters and will eat many types of algae and a great amount too.
So, they are agents of tank sanitation because they get rid of all the algae in their tanks.
Do Royal Pleco Eat Woods?
Yes, they eat a lot of plants and woods too. They could eat any soft wood they could find in their environment.
As I explained many times in this article, they are more herbivores and every herbivore’s fish could eat woods that are soft for them to eat.
What Do Royal Plecos Eat?
Being omnivores, they are exposed to eating many things that other fish could eat such as Flakes, Plants, Leaves, Pellets, Meats such as Worms, Copepods, Larvae, Insects, Grasshoppers, etc.
If you have this fish or you are planning to have one for yourself, you can feed it with anything you like but most importantly, make sure that the aquarium is heavily planted with any of those aquarium plants I mentioned above or a mixture of all of them.
Conclusion
Royal Plecos are plant eaters but that doesn’t mean they should be kept without plants because they need them.
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