I have already covered on this site how plecos can eat most vegetables. They can also eat fruit like apple slices if you prepare them properly (not recommended, however, due to the sugar content).
So, will plecos eat bananas?
It depends on your plecos. Some plecos absolutely love bananas while others won’t touch them. The type of pleco doesn’t even matters. It just comes down to the preference of the individual fish.
That said, I strongly recommend against feeding your plecos bananas because it will make your fish tank a mess. However, if you still want to go along with feeding your fish fruit, then here’s how you can do it in the least messy way possible.
Cleanly Feeding Your Plecos Bananas
As I mentioned earlier, you can’t easily feed your plecos bananas without making a mess of your fish tank. The fibers in the banana will break down, which can clog the filter. The glucose (sugar) that is in the bananas will also cause a bacterial overgrowth in your tank.
It’s just a mess.
A few tips to make the process a little easier are to feed slice the bananas before placing them in the tank. And don’t put too many banana slices in the tank at once.
It goes without saying that you should take the peel off the bananas before placing them in the tank.
Our other tip, which applies when feeding your fish any fruit, is to only feed your fish bananas immediately before a water change. Changing out the water will pull out a lot of the glucose and other nastiness that will get in the tank from the banana.
Should You Feed a Pleco Bananas?
I don’t recommend it despite it being possible.
It’s just too much of a hassle with the amount of mess that it will create in your tank. The worst part is that your plecos may not even like bananas!
If you want to treat your plecos to some more interesting food, then feed your plecos lettuce or feed them carrots. Really, you can feed them most vegetables without too much problem.
Fish don’t really like sugar the same way that humans like sugar, so it’s not much of a treat for them anyway. All it is a complete headache for you to clean up afterwards.
Conclusion
To summarize, plecos can eat bananas, but not all plecos like bananas. Some of them may refuse to eat bananas depending on how hungry they are and their current diet.
It’s also a complete mess to put bananas in a fish tank, so it’s something that I do not recommend to pleco owners. There are much better foods that you can feed your plecos that won’t be nearly as problematic for the parameters of your fish tank.