Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Feeding and water temps?????????

I have heard Bob say a fish will gain weight 1:2 on feed. Is this true at differing water temps?

For example:

5 fish one each in 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 degree water eating 1 pound of feed, all will add 0.5 pound of weight? Will fish in colder water gain less, more, same as fish in warmer water eating the same amount of feed?????

I'll bet you that Rainbow Trout in 70 and 80 degree water won't gain any weight.

Bob, must have been talking of force feeding My pond is or was similar to yours BrianL with lots of cnbg and few lmb in the beginning and so with little pressure from fish predators and feeding using a TH feeder and being fed most everyday for 3 yrs, the bg should weigh in at the maximum growth for that time period. How big will a cnbg get? lol

Both feeding and metabolism will slow at both ends of the species temp range. Most fish are cold blooded which causes the above. Bob was talking about max growth at near optimum temps = growing days. Growth rates do vary even within the growth days. Digestion rate is highly variable based on metabolism which is controlled by temps. Feeding is similar but not identical to growth (offset a little on the temp scale).

The other thread got me to thinking about when to stop feeding. I guess main question was will a CNBG eating the same amount of food in 55 degree water gain the same as a CNBG in 75 degree water.

I talked to a few people about this when I first started feeding, but I may have misunderstood what was being said. My understanding(which may be WRONG) as the water gets colder, the fishes body doesn't convert fish food to body mass as well, thus a deminishing return on food as water temps decrease. If the fish isn't converting it to body mass, then it is being pooped out and increasing the nutrient load of the pond.

If that is not the case, I may feed till they stop eating regardless of water temp.

Temps here took a nosedive, 50's now in the day, 30's at night. Temp drop during the day is 20+ degrees. My fish haven't fed in 3 days, at least not visibly.

I cut feeder back to 2 sec morning and evening. Will increase it if I seed a feed response.

It is going to drop here tonight as well. We are supposed to get our first frost tonight, but 40-50 degree temp swings around here are fairly common. It was mid 80s yesterday, and back in 80s Monday.

It's 37 degrees here this afternoon and the wind is blowing, they are forecasting 32 degrees at midnight with a low of 27 degrees at sunrise. I think I will skip feeding tonight.

Here, in late fall, it can be 45 one day and 75 the next. Cold and dry, then warm and wet. It depends on the fetch from the Gulf of Mexico. I wish we would get the winds from the Gulf all winter without letup. It's 43 here now (6:30 PM), supposed to have upper 70's again next week.

Dipping into the high 20s here at night now so I'm transitioning to winter mode at our pond. I quit feeding a week or so ago. Monday I will be stocking winter forage of FHM and GSH to keep everybody happy with an abundance of ready food if they get hungry during those cold winter nights. Vegetation is dying back so I will wait a couple of weeks and then turn off the aeration. I will only be aerating after that when we have really thick ice or snow cover until spring.

Just turned cold here and supposed to get down to freezing temps. I'm down to one diffuser running in the main pond and still running the ones in the sediment and forage ponds but trying to decide if I just want to shut everything down now.

Wondering if what warm days we have left it not better to let the upper water to warm up rather than try to turn the whole BOW.

Fish still feeding good right now. Not as active as a week ago but they still come to the shore line wanting fed every time I pass by with the 4 wheeler. Last year I made it to about the first of December before the water got too cold and fish activity dropped.

I will start feeding in the warmest part of the day now rather than right before dark as is my usual feeding time. May skip cold cloudy days if the fish are not interested. All hand feeding here so I can do that.

It just hit 29 degrees here. I'm not sure if my fish are wanting to feed, but I am sure I won't be out there this morning to find out.

Yes it's colder here also, I think we hit 34 last night but my water temps were 73 yesterday afternoon with the diffusers running. And my fish are still slow with feeding because of the heavy bloom that is still going now close to 30 days. I have found no dead or floating fish so I know they are ok, so far.

Cold here as well. Tracy I also have had a strong bloom for over a month now, fishing is tough cause the visibility is less than a foot. Never had a bloom that strong before. Wondering if the filling temps will end this....

21 degrees here at sunrise.

Pat, I am kinda of glad to hear of others here so I know I am not the only Texas guy with dense blooms, but still I'm sorry to hear of your dense bloom, maybe it's not that big of a deal but I am guessing it could be. And if you are like me, I have worried to much about loosing fish due to the BLOOM that has been ongoing for some time now. Has your bloom gone through different color stages, mine has for the first time ever. For me, I think it was caused by the drought and by maybe over feeding( I tell myself don't do it) but I guess I'm feeding to much. I am going to change food when I run out of what I have and thinking of the Optimal and make myself feed for only 2 sec. per feeder per day. Or 6 sec total from the 3 feeders.

Are you feeding? What do you think caused your dense bloom?

Feeding 6 seconds a day may add a little to your bloom but that is not the cause in your water Tracy. Your bloom as described is like a thousand that I have seen and most were not on ponds with feeding.

22 degrees here at sunrise. First hard freeze. Ponds still relatively warm. Bluegill still feeding, CC surfacing a little for feed.

A neighbor's deep pond with steep banks about 700' south of mine is neglected, not managed, not fed, has only small sunfish AFAIK, and has a pea soup look all summer. No FA, just completely green water. It's surrounded on three sides by trees. It only gets runoff from a hay field and three back yards from a nearby subdivision, so the source of nutrients is probably from leaves, maybe a little turkey litter that the hay field gets once a year.

I checked water temps right before feeding this evening. I was totally surprised that at 12" it was 55 degrees. I figured it would have been at least 60.

But the fish ate feed fine. Even the CC were up feeding aggressively so I would suspect the water temp deeper was higher.

I may check it again tomorrow at a deeper depth. I shut off all aeration so I would not be cooling the lower water from the cold snap we just had.

I suppose my pool thermometer could be off, but I would not think so.

Last year my fish got very sluggish and feed consumption slowed to a trickle when the temperature reached 50 degrees.

I expect this cold snap to pass and still have a month of feeding weather here.

Thanks Eric, I remember last June when I had the dense bloom, you suggested I look around the pond area for something in the environment that is the cause of my dense blooms. Will, I have yet to find what might be causing the dense blooms if it's not the feeding. MY Bad! If I continue on my present path and not find the source then maybe the BioCycle product I started using will help to control the excess nutrients. We shall see how this product works. Those small micro bugs have been in the water for about a week now, so I need to give those bugs a little more time at the breakfast table or double up on the next treatment.

John F, I have problems with excess Willow trees along two shorelines. And I attempt to keep them thinned out using a pole saw(chain saw). When doing the thinning I do get some leaves and small trees in the pond water. I have suspected it could be one of the causes of excess nutrients when thinning out those trees.

They are calling for temps in the low 90s tomorrow! We are having big temp swings this year. I have about a week worth of food left, plus the Optimal test food. This should be a good test week.

My surface temperatures were 68 last week and 65 day before yesterday. I cut my feeder back to one second a day which was probably premature as the next 7 days are going to be warm.

During the last 3 weeks, my water temps have been dropping into the 40s at night and climbing barely into the 50s on the warmest days. The GSF and GC are no longer coming to the surface for Optimal. I suspect the YP are still cleaning up pellets that sink.

My lone RBT slashes vigorously into the pellets immediately after they hit the water's surface. She looks kinda lonely, so...yesterday I brought home 10 tiger trout, 6 to 9 inches.

I imagine the rainbow is thinking, "There goes the neighborhood..." This will be my first try with tigers in the pond. What beautiful fish. Unfortunately, I broke the glass lens cover on my Droid phone while hunting antelope last week, so no pics.

Anyone have knowledge about replacing that round glass deal on a Motorola Force?

Very cool! Not to hijack, but I am very interested in how the tigers do and where you got them! If I can get the Brookies to reproduce at my place, I am adding a few tigers to help with population control!

Patrick Goddard, who owns Rainbow Springs Hatchery in Durango, was able to source the tigers. He is out of them now but plans to get more next year.

I got them second hand from someone near Durango who bought them from Patrick. The man I bought them from has a property with springs giving 1,000,000 gallons of flow per day of cold water suitable for trout! He has 7 ponds on his place plus 3 raceways for his hobby of trout rearing. I'm envious, to say the least.