Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding How much of an impact will 50 lbs of food have?

Reminder- My pond is fairly large.

Will I notice an impact if I go through 50lbs of optimal a month?
I've got it set up near a known bass spawning area. Haven't zerod in on a bluegill spawning area that is easy to get to.

How many pounds of feed do I need to go through to have an effect on the fishies.

Customer of mine is feeding 1,000# of Optimal to his fish per year. He has a 4 acre pond and feeds an average of 100#/month when the fish are eating (25#/acre/month), which is when there is no ice on the pond. Here is what the 2 1/2 year old Bluegills look like in his pond.

25# per acre per month (about a pound per acre per day) is about where I want to be this year at my feeder. Will probably hand feed in areas other than the feeder a little also.

I've been closer to 2-3# per acre per day in the past and I have just ran into too much problems with too much fertility in the water. As long as we have a really rainy season with a lot of flushing it is ok, but later in the summer when not much water goes over the overflow I can run into problems with blugreen algae and always have some problems with FA. If I kill the FA off them seems like about late July or August I get bluegreen algae. I have a limited watershed. People with higher rates of flushing of nutrients might not have the same problem.

Think this year I am just going to let the FA run and cut down on the feeding amount and see if it helps. Maybe the FA will be better taking up the nutrients instead of the BGA.

To CityDad, the fish will find the feeder, wherever you put it. And a certain amount of "hogs" will dominate the location. So even if you feed a small amount (compared to a large amount), you will get some good growth on a certain number of individual fish. At least that is my observation.