Is there a regiment one could follow to get an idea of how to optimize your fish feeding?

I am not sure if I am feeding enough feed to our perch. I have read a few times about hydrating feed. How do people hydrate their feed? How do you know how much to feed with out creating a problem with water quality?

I have seen some pictures of fish on here that look like footballs. Ours are not footballs and when we cleaned them up to eat they had very little in their bellys.

Maybe folks can share their feeding program. Times of day, water temps, and how long they feed in the year. Type of feed and hydration tips.

I have farmed pigs, and beef but this fish thing is crazy new.

Cheers Don.

Others will have second opinions. IMO the best method to know if you are feeding enough fish food to keep the fish plump in the smaller pond (>0.75-1.0ac) is to hand feed. Good hand feeding technique has a few guidelines. These guidelines are not necessary but they provide optimum or ultimate benefits. 1. Add feed as the fish consume it; not all at once. 2. Keep adding food slowly as it is consumed for up to 30 minutes or when the fish slow way down on the rate they eat the food. Allow fish to eat most all the food before adding more food. 3. Taking time to hydrate the food results in smaller sizes of fish to consume larger pellets. 4. Hydrating pellets allows one to form or customize the pellet size for up to the largest fish i.e. small fist size pellets. The hydrating process insures optimal feeding by all sizes of fish that are being fed one size of larger pellet for example AM600. A larger soft 9/32"(6-8mm) pellet is edible by 4" fish since the pellet is compressible and soft. Several to 20 pellets squeezed together is preferred by larger fish.

As I mentioned these guidelines are not mandatory but provide ultimate results. Here is a link to previous discussions for hydrating or softening pellets. Basically you add water to the pellets until they reach the desired consistency - usually modeling clay or formable cookie dough.

So Bill....where's the link?

Bob-O - the Forum access slowed to a stop and I went on to other projects. See next post.

Hydrating fish food pellets. I found there were numerous discussions about using hydrated pellets but few if any specific instructions how to do it. Here is the hydrated fish pellet recipe that I developed and have been using since 1990. I developed this method to pellet train fish in cages. Flavored water can be used to enhance the flavor of the pellets for training fish to eat pellets.

Softening Fish food Pellets
One quart of pellets (1/4” 5D06 Aquamax)) and 6 to 6.5 ounces of water. For one gallon of pellets use 24 - 30 ounces of water. Small batches: one cup of pellets & 2-3 tablespoons of water. Smaller pellets soften faster than larger pellets. Sometimes different batches or brands of pellets will require slightly more or less water. Lower quality pellets of less than 40% protein will usually not soften properly and will either become crumbly or mushy. Experiment.

Shake pellets and water for one full minute or until ALL water is absorbed and all water is absorbed so NO “gravy” remains. Water soluble nutrients will leach from the pellets when the pellets are too damp and mushy with a gravy. Pellets should be shaken once to three times within the next 10 to 30 minutes to keep individual pellets from sticking together. When done, you want ALL pellets to have a very similar softness but definitely not mushy. When properly softened, the pellets will stick together and mold like damp clay or cookie dough while not sticking to your fingers. Pellets can be rolled and made larger or smaller when hydrated. Sticky pellets means that too much water was added.

The soaking container that I use (1.5gal) has a lid. I think this helps during the soaking process to retain the moisture and prevents excessive drying of pellets so they remain more pliable and damp during the soaking process. Use a smaller container for small batches of pellets. Cecil Baird developed a method of using a ‘ziploc’ bag as a container to hydrate the pellets.

I let the pellets soak up water for 2 to 6 hours; longer is usually better and produces a more pliable pellet. Using hot water to soak pellets or heating wet pellets in the microwave causes them to hydrate faster. Heat should not lower the nutritional quality of the pellets because the pellets mixture was heated during the pellet making process.

Soaking times may vary somewhat depending on pellet size and brand of feed. If pellets are too dry after several hours of soaking, I spray a mist or sprinkle water on them several minutes before feeding. I built a water sprinkler out of a 2 qt juice bottle and I shake as I sprinkle and even coating of water on pellets and allow them to soak 20-30 minutes longer.

Aquamax pellets, 24 hours after soaking and when stored in the refrigerator, tend to lose their pliability and become crumbly. At this point they are still soft but it is harder to mold them into a larger damp pellet. Other fish food brands such as Skretting/Silver Cup, Melick, Zeigler, and Optimal will maintain pliability after 24 hrs in the refrigerator. I often feed the day old, damp, crumbly pellets to non-sport fish and minnows. Damp pellets will form mold fairly quickly. Be watchful of this and do not feed moldy food to your fish.

Critics have commented that the soft pellets will leach valuable nutrients form the pellet as is lays in the pond water. My experience is the fish quickly eat the pellets as soon as they hit the water. Thus IMO few nutrients are lost from hydrated pellets. Plus if you are making larger pellets from smaller soft pellets a majority of the nutrients are buried inside the large sinking pellet which is very quickly eaten by hungry fish.

More reading: Pond Boss Magazine May-June 2008. SPECIAL SECTION FISH FEEDING ISSUE. THE SOFTER SIDE OF FEEDING FISH by Bill Cody. He explains details how to soften hard fish food pellets plus the benefits and varied uses for moist or hydrated fish foods.

Hydrating benefits
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