Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations How To Feed BG and CC From The Same Feeder?

Some thoughts on feeding CC and BG:

Both species are known to take floating pelleted feed readily (given suitable water temps). Both will self-train on pellets. My CC started eating pellets almost immediately after I started feeding daily; my BG waited for over two years before they got into it. Some others have reported the exact opposite reaction, while I think most have both species eat fairly quickly.

I believe both BG and CC, like all species that are known to eat pellets, will start consuming significant amounts of floating feed when they 1) are hungry enough to have an interest in it and 2) get some pellets in their mouths and realize that it's food. This last Summer as the GShiner forage my LMB were used to eating became scarce, about a dozen of the LMB took to eating the pellets that they have previous experience with while trying to catch feeding GSH and BG.

I know BG will show each other how to eat floating pellets, and like DD suggests, CC would I am sure do the same. So if your CC don't start up on pellets next Spring when the water is above 60 deg F, adding a few CC who are used to eating pellets may take care of condition 2 above.

IME delivering useful quantities of feed to both CC and BG is aided by spreading the feed out over a larger area. This gives the BG lots of real estate to eat in NOT occupied by the larger CC. I only hand feed, so I don't know how well this philosophy might be applied with the various mechanical feeders.