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My Pl*cos are leaving a trail of S*#t everywhere. It is hanging off of everything. What a Mess!!

They do a real good job of otherwise keeping the tank clean except for what they, themselves, leave behind.

Is there another fish that will do the job as well without leaving the mess? I would love to replace them, but I don't want a algea buildup.

It sounds to me like over feeding. I had this same problem when I first started out with pleco's try to cut back the food and Im sure the turds will cut back too

Plecos are like that...long streaming ones. IF you have lots of algea, then you will get a lot of crap. My tanks pretty stable, and no algea, so the plecos eat only the leftover Oscar food waste, and zuchine, (which the Oscars don't like) so there poop trails now are pretty small. It seems only from algea is it long and stringy, not sure if others agree with this observation, but it seems to be my experence.

Sometimes plecos can be more of a mess than the cleaners their supposed to be. I agree with all of the above, less food, and no pleco where you can get away with it. If water is good with no algae get rid of the pleco and go with a Cory or something like it.

When I kept oscars, my pleco's would get cliffhangers the length of my tank or longer, but I did notice that there was little to no algae at all, so now that I look back at that and the fact that I was majorly overfeeding, I think I agree with fuzzy on that. but on the other hand the pleco that was my favorite was about 14 inches long, so that might have a hand in the issue too

I am only feeding them once a day. I'm not sure if I should cut back to less food once a day or feed them every other day. I have noticed they are only "real hungry" every other day.

For now I will try every other day. I hope my Oscar and JD don't bite my hand off when I do feed them.