Best Sinking Food for Bottom Feeders (Cory, Pleco, Loach)

Corydoras, plecos, loaches and other bottom dwellers share one problem: the food never reaches them. Floating flakes get eaten at the surface, and even slow-sinking pellets are snatched mid-water by faster fish. They need food built to sink.

Why floating food starves them

A common beginner mistake is assuming a bottom feeder will "clean up" whatever falls. In a busy community tank, very little falls, because the mid-water fish are efficient. Bottom feeders are not scavengers that thrive on scraps; they need their own dedicated, fast-sinking food or they slowly starve, however plump the tank looks from the front.

What to feed

• Hikari Sinking Wafers are the go-to staple: dense discs that drop straight to the substrate and hold together long enough for shy fish to graze without turning to mush.
• New Life Spectrum sinking pellets are a superb all-fish food that bottom feeders take readily, with the whole-fish ingredient quality that shows in color and health.
• Fluval Bug Bites bring an insect-protein option that many fish find highly palatable.

Plecos also need vegetable matter and, for the wood-eating species, a piece of driftwood to rasp: wafers alone are not a complete pleco diet.

Feed at night

The single best trick for bottom feeders is to feed after the lights go off. Many are nocturnal and only come out to forage in the dark, and lights-out also removes the mid-water competition. Drop a wafer or two near their hiding spots as the last thing you do at night.

Don't overfeed

Sinking food is easy to over-supply because you cannot see it vanish. Feed only what is gone within a few hours, and remove any uneaten wafer before it fouls the substrate. See the full fish food rankings and, for picky species, the picky-eater guide.