My pond is stocked with bluegill,sunfish, channel cats, and largemouth bass. Over the last two years i have been using fish food called big strike and little strike which is around 32% and 36% protein. Over the years my wife has heard me talking about using a higher protein fish food. So for Christmas she surprised me with several bags of aquamax carnivore food which is 41% protein. It is my understanding that the bluegill will eat this but the channel cats would not. Does anyone have any suggestions or thoughts on this. Would it be ok for me to mix the aquamax carnivore with the little strike fish food or not?

The Pond Boss, Lusk, told me a couple of weeks ago that high protien food will damage the livers of the cats. Not sure about mixing it. I might feed some to them on occasion but not as a steady diet.

I mix food all the time but don't have CC. Take a look at this SRAC fact sheet on CC feeding. I don't think a mixed diet would hurt the CC.

Channel Catfish Production

http://srac.tamu.edu/tmppdfs/127565-187f...65749bb746940e6


Past studies have indicated that
optimal protein levels for channel
catfish diets are between 25 and 45
percent.

A study at Auburn University
measured the effects of feeding
commercial-type diets containing
24, 28, 32, 36 or 40 percent protein
to third-year catfish in ponds. Fish
were stocked at 1,977 per acre and
went from an average size of 1.3
pounds to an average of 3.6
pounds in 141 days. They were fed
to satiation once daily.

In an aquaculture scenario the excess protein, if fed continually, may cause liver damage. In a recreatiional pond, I wouldn't worry about it. You are only supplementing the natural diet. Catch and eat some before they get liver problems.

Craig, I have fed aggressively, a mix of AQMX 500 and 600 for near 5 years and have had excellent results with CNBG and HSB.
The CC pick up the "scraps" and nearing 8 -10 lbs. Too many kitties due to original overstocking - would be helpful if high protein would help reduce their numbers...
Damage by high protein feed must be minimal.

My questiosn Craig is what is feeding? If bluegill and cats are target use the food provided but do not suggest buying for extra expense in future.

If feeding HSB or Trout then the Aquamax is better choice. In fact I like a 44% protein 18% fat for trout. However the litttle strike is big advantage over big strike when talking about BG feeding. Nothing of course is feeding well right now. The aquamx is great just I do not think the most econoimical choice for bg and cc.

I similar to George, fed Aquamax and its predecessor (Purina Trout Chow) to a mixed fish community for 10-12 years. I never had problems with the catfish dying from fatty livers even though they may have had fatty livers. Free roaming fish may (?) get enough wild food items to somewhat balance out the dietary problems from the high protein and high fat food. Kind of like people, many are overweight from too much high fat foods but not a lot of them are dying of fatty livers. Now clogged arteries, that is another story.

It's my understanding that it's the excessive carbohydrates fed to carnivorous fish, not the protein, that causes fatty livers. However Dr. Paul Brown of Purdue that does extensive research on feeds has told me that unlike humans, fish can be functional diabetics (fatty livers) and survive just fine.

On another note also from my understanding the premature deaths of pellet fed fish is not totally understood. As in LMB something seema to be missing in their pellet diet but no one seems to know what for sure.

I agree with one of the posters on this. If you are not feeding fish that need the extra protein why spend the extra money for it you don't need. Bluegills, talapia, and catfish can get by with less protein.

I have a question on aquamax size. I want to start feeding around the docks with aquamax, basicaly the little sun fish. The main feeding is still gonna be Purina gamefish, but around the docks for the little guys is the question. Which size would be good, its ok if some sinks but some has to float. Thanks

Joey, the Aquamax is available in really small pellet sizes, like 1/8 inch. my experience has been that the big fish like the little ones just fine also. i like the small size cauze it makes em work harder to clean up. floats good.

IIRC Aquamax 400 is the smallest floating size; 500 and 600 are progressively bigger.

If you crack it/mash it up, smaller fish can handle it better. A fraction of the broken up feed will sink, but my fish like eating the sinkers on the way down before going after the floating feed.

Edit: I checked at the link ewest provided here , and 400, 500, and 600 are supposed to be 3/32", 3/16", and 1/4" in diameter respectively.

like 1/8 inch = 3/32", thats the new math!

one more thing, it was my perception/observation that my fish went for the aquamax much harder than after the gamefishchow. i only get the aquamax now.

my local guy was getting it (the small pellets) straight from the mill, Indiana I think. it was fresh like a new loaf of bread. I had to wait to get it.

one downside was the small pellets completely flew thru the feeder, i mean i had the aquapro on shortest cycle time and about half the bag was flying out of the thing. sounds funny, it was.

i think i did some tests but dont recall details to slow it down. went back to the cracked corn for the feeder but now the cracked corn is more expensive than the fish food delivered from Indiana.

3/32 is really small and the fish you see will be able to handle one or two pellets.

Theo, how do you smash it up? maybe i could run it through a hammermill to spread it across the pond.

Craig, my recolection is that I was getting the carnivore and my CC were going nuts on it. I will check the leftover bags in barn when I get back home.

This will be no help for bulk feeding; I just tap each pellet with a stick. I'm cracking small quantities for indoor Redears.

Once time I couldn't find some small sized aquamax when my fish were small so I took some of the 500 sized pellets and ran them through a coffee grinder, just one of the small high speed counter top jobs. I bet a blender would work to. Just don't tell your wife you used it. Coffee was better than ever when she used it after.

dont run the fish food thru my coffee grinder, i am a coffee conosur. bz, check the scud thread

Theo, i am cracking up at mortar and pistoling one pellet at a time.

Don't worry cb, I won't grind fish food or scuds in your coffee grinder. But I wonder how shrimp flavored coffee would be?

BZ, shrimp flavored coffee?

Have you considered the therapeutic effects of coming South for awhile? SnowBirds here say the ever present sunshine seems to help their cognitive powers. Don't come today. It's going to be a rather chilly 65 degrees.

Bought a bag of the Aquamax 400. Its perfect size for the baby sunfish by the docks. Thanks for the info...

I really like the smell, threw a small handfull around the docks and out into open water. The trout exploded on it, even though the pellets are kinda small for them.

good move Joey, sounds like your ponds are a couple weeks ahead of mine

i would love to have trout

joey, i thought you were NJ...

my name is short for retard

guess i need a scorecard

like i said fresh like bread

I used to live in NJ. If you look at my pond prowler in the pic its reg in NJ but I am in SUNNY NC now and love it. Should have dont it 20 years ago....

I am preparing for my hybrid striped bass that I am getting from overton next week. I have been feed GFC to cats and BG and am going to introduce the HSB with them- would you feed both kinds of feed- the HSB need the higher protein or can they subsist (the feed is a supplement to their wild diet- right) on the GFC. the HSB are the lasgest available 7+ can't wait to get the HSB trained on food. I priced the auquamax and ouch it is near $30.00 per bag

That is much higher that our GFC cost at $12-15 (last winter price).

I mix GFC with others to make the size and protein % I need. Ask Todd what they are eating now and mix it with the GFC.

The fish are currently on a 46% protein/12% fat 3/16" pellet. GFC is 32% protein. It might be ok to mix the two, as long as the HSBs have a forage base.

new price as of Monday 4-2 will be higher; GFC is 17.60. what is the 46% protein feed?? I was going to order auqamax 600 is this adequate to HSB and then mix it with GFC to cover all the critters at the buffett

also does abyone feed the purina crawdad food to enhance their mudbug population???

Crawfish: Purina does not make crawdad food. To my knowledge, nobody does. In labs, sinking trout diets (AquaMax 5D03) are used routinely. They do make Crawfish Bait. The bait is designed to attract crawfish into traps, not grow them.
Prices: All food prices have gone up and are expected to continue the trend. For those steak eaters out there - watch out - prices are expected to soar. Back to fish feed - fish meal based diets are all increasing as manufaccturers are working through their stocks of already paid for fish meal. New fish meal is going for $900+, compared to the low to mid $400s two years ago. You all have probably heard what ethanol has done for the corn market.... all food is going up in price. Mark

You are correct - it is called bait, but I suppose they would eat it and it would be somewhat nutritious and enhance their population if you placed it around your pond in hopes of attracting more of them for the fish to eat ----??

If you want to attract new crawfish to serve as fish food, I think you would have to routinely stock crawfish. Immigration would be a slow process and not likely to increase the fish's food supply in a significant way. I think to have a good crawfish population, you will need good crawfish habitat and rely on their reproductive success. Mark

Does the healthy crawfish population cut down on weed problems as I was told they eat weeds.

Dean - Yes a dense or "good" population of crayfish will reduce rooted submerged weeds. Species or palatability of weeds will make a difference as to how well crayfish consume the weeds. Ponds with low or no crayfish predators are usually murky due to lots of bottom activity of crayfish and no or very few submerged weeds are present.

Mr. Cody - I've been told I should 'catch' them out of the pond because the 'hole' they create in the levee would eventually cause problems??

Pond Girl- It all depends. For the most part your advisors are correct. However your advisors were lumping all crayfish into one behavior. It was like saying since pit bulls are vicious all dogs are vicious. However not all crayfish species are the burrowing types. For instance papershell crayfish (Orconectes immunis) do not typicaly make burrows out of water on pond banks. Papershells rarely even make burrows underwater unless the water level gets really low and the pond or stream almost dries up, then some burrowing will occur. I am pretty sure that the worst crayfish burrowing offenders are those that climb out of the pond and dig holes down into the walls or edges of the pond walls. A pond dam perforated with crayfish burrows whould not be good for integrety of the dam or the clay liner.

If you have a strong or normal LMB population you should have nary a crayfish. If you have lots of crayfish then in almost every case there are too few bass.