As an additional note, I always hand feed my fish hydrated pellets aka softened pellets. I do this for several reasons, four main reasons are 1. smaller fish can easily eat a larger pellet and expend less energy getting that pellet. 2. a non pellet trained fish will much more readily accept and learn to eat a soft pellet compared to a hard pellet, 3. softened or moist pellets are easier and quicker for fish to digest in cold water, and 4. I can easily mold together several pellets into a large pellet for larger fish. Many fish seem to "like" the larger soft pellets compared to smaller hard pellets. The large pellet can either float or sink depending on how much air is squeezed from the pellet grouping. The larger fish appear to prefer the larger pellets because the larger fish rise primarily for the large pellets or grouping of pellets and ignore small pellets. Hydrated pellets are more time consuming and bothersome to produce, however I do not feed a lot of pellets each day and I think the benefits of using soft pellets for me in the long run outweigh the disadvantages. I live and work at the pond site so softening pellets is not a big problem.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 02/23/15 11:24 AM.
