Pleco owners love to claim that their fish will eat anything they can put in their mouth.
Naturally, this leads to the question of whether or not plecos will eat poop.
No, plecos will not eat poop as it does not have much nutritional value. The only fish we know about that eat their own waste are tilapia.
That said, plecos will eat a lot of different types of food you wouldn’t expect a fish to eat like bananas.
Why People Think Plecos Eat Poop
There are two reasons that plecos have the reputation for eating poop.
First, people see plecos constantly sucking on the bottom and believe they eat poop when they do that. They don’t actually eat any waste during that process. Instead, they are sucking algae and other food off the bottom of the tank.
It’s a perfectly reasonable cause for confusion.
The other reason people think plecos eat poop has to do with their rather unique diet. Plecos do rasp on wood, which is unusual behavior for fish. Combine that with the fact that plecos are bottom feeders and you will reach the conclusion that they eat poop.
Conclusion
To wrap things up, plecos do not eat poop. They eat algae and other food off the bottom of the tank, which can cause a lot of confusion.
As for an overall diet for plecos, I strongly recommend going with a mix of pleco wafers, vegetables like cucumbers or zucchini, and some sort of meat like bloodworms once or twice a week.