Is anyone using it yet and your thoughts? Interesting to see that it's 9mm. I ordered some today to experiment with. I have non feed trained SMB and RES that are feed trained on Optimal BG food. I plan to mix the Optimal Bass with the Optimal Bluegill and see what type of feeding response I get.

I have some going to be here tomorrow. But Its just the free sample. Do you know if its the same or similar formula and just a different size or what?

Looking at the tag online it is a different formula.

Is it a pellet or shaped like the BG feed?

Different fish = different food.

Even different sized fish of the same species should get different food. Puppy chow vs. adult dog food, right? Same thing.

Mine will be in tomorrow and I'll post some pics of it compared to bluegill.

I'm pretty sure some of my larger RES could eat a 9MM pellet if they wanted to.

Bump to get esshup's input. Sounds like excellent stuff.

Here is the size difference on Optimal bass compared to Optimal bluegill. Just received the sample today. Put the feed labels on it also for comparison. In the pic, bluegill is on top bass is on bottom.

[img:left][/img]

[img:left][/img]

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Is the top one considered floating? It isn't labeled as such. Also the address in the top one is Sioux Falls, bottom Brookings, SD did the factory move?

What else is the primary difference between bass and BG food? The protein is different, obviously size and shape, but do bass need different sources of protein? more grain?

The top does float. That is out of my batch I got the other day. I do not know about the address thing. I got both of the tags on their website. Maybe it hasn't been updated or something. I'm sure someone will chime on the difference in whats needed. Just showing what I had so it could be seen.

So animal protein is derived from....what? Chicken?

I'd have thought mostly fish, though there is chicken fat as well.

I have both CNBG and TP, but with Optimal the CNBG vastly outnumber tilapia at the feeders.

By the way, I got 4 big bags of BG feed and two free samples of the BG Jr feed in today.

i just got my samples in today. my goal is to grow large bluegill and it seems like the perfect size for them, but way too small for bass. i hand fell with it today and the fish loved it. i am sure my sweeney would handle that size feed well. it has a lot stronger smell than the bluegill feed. it puts me in mind of how aquamax used to smell and look. if the price was right, i think i would use it solely for my feed for bg and bass.

Mostly blood meal/bone meal - beef IIRC

Some chicken feathers peices parts and some fish meal .

You're talking about the LMB feed, right?

Fed some mixed with my bluegill feed also. The little ones sure did not ignore it. Although I saw quite a few get pulled under just to pop back up. Then one would grab it and it wouldn't come back up. They were sure hitting it though. I think it would be great for big BG also. As already said, the smell is quite a bit stronger...but different. IMHO I still think the BG feed smells more like aquarium flakes...or thats what I think of when I smell it. lol.

Like ewest said...those are both legal to have in ruminant feed. I found a FDA list today...quite lengthy on the ins and outs of restricted animal protein products for ruminants (cows, sheep, goats, deer, etc, they have 4 stomach compartments)...if you read their tag it states that the feed is made a mill that does not produce or store animal protein products that are ruminant restricted...so it narrows down a bit on what could actually be used as the animal protein product.

I got this from Clayton at Optimal.

"There were some questions about addresses on labels, Brookings is a production facility and Sioux Falls is a Corporate office location.
Same company same great feed.
Also the Optimal Bluegill is a floating feed. I will check why that is not on the current label.
Hope that helps.
Thanks Again
Clayton"

Thought I would share it with you guys since it was questioned.

I just received Optimal Bass, Optimal BG and a sample of Optimal BG Jr. via FedEx this morning (22 hrs after ordering to Nebraska!!). I will get a chance to play with it Thursday evening. I will try to take pictures of it side by side by side. But let me know what other info you guys would like.

BTW, their customer service is unreal. Email response time is very quick.

NEDOC, that's good to hear.

All of them used in ponds that I have seen.

+1 on what NEDOC said.

For example, my shipment had a problem and was going to be couple days late. I got a call from them about the situation, plus got an extra 5# bass feed sample. I didn't have to call them to ask about the shipment or call and email 10 times. They called me to tell me of the error. Then checked in to make sure all was well. That says a lot about customer service. There aren't many that check "after the sale" on a customer.

I'm not trying to no one else does the same thing...I'm just saying that the optimal crew was top notch!

FWIW - I'm not implying protein derived from sources other than fish is a bad thing - I'm certainly no expert and fish nutrition is a very complex science the industry is just beginning to understand it seems. So far seems results from Optimal BG feed has been positive - just curious on the protein source for the carnivore feed.

Look at this . Mark Griffin is the top fish nutritionist PhD with no ax to grind - no longer with Purina .


Also a big source , that is not as good as fish meal , is plant based proteins like soybean products. There is a lot here on fish food in prior threads.

Here is some info from Mark Griffin , PhD, previously with Purina.

Dog food is designed for dogs - you are much better off going with fish food designed for the fish you are feeding.

Feather meal as a fish food protein source. There are two primary factors of protein quality for monogastrics (fish for this discussion) - 1) Amino Acid profile and 2) Amino Acid availability. The amino acid profile of feather looks pretty good if you look at the Total Sulfur Amino Acid content. It has a high content of cystine - a sulfur amino acid (SAA). SAAs can be limiting in monogastric diets and tend to be expensive to formulate into diets (they are relatively low in many inexpensive plant proteins). Unfortunately, the reason it is so high is because feather is a structural protein. The di-sulfide bonds between two cysteines make the protein very tough. This is what gives the keratins their structural rigidity - like our hair and fingernails. Unfortunately, this serves to make them very hard to digest. Therefore, as a rule, the availability is not so good. To increase the availability, feather meal is often hydrolyzed, this is an attempot to break down the disulfide bonds to increase availability. Shoe leather analyzes at 85% crude protein, but it is not digestible.

A word on protein sources.... Most protein sources are available in different qualities. This is particularly true for the expensive animal proteins - fish meal, poultry meals, blood meals, etc. Quality and freshness of the raw materials and the processing are factors that result in this variability. As examples:
A) Quality of Raw Materials: Meat meals are often priced on protein content - simply put, it is the ratio of bone (ash) to meat (protein). Bones (minerals, ash) are not as valuable as protein.
B) Freshness of Raw Materials: The US commercial fishing fleet for menhaden now has all refrigerated vessel storage.... the season is in over the summer, primarily in the Gulf of Mexico. Obviously, if it is not refrigerated....
c) Processing: Blood has a good amino acid profile. If it is drum-dried (essentially scorched on a extremely hot steel drum) it has poor availability and is a fairly poor ingredient. If it has been spray dried under low heat - it is an excellent ingredient.

High quality fish meal is the gold standard - it has the best Amino acid profile for fish (fish protein to grow fish protein)and is highly digestible. Further, it tastes great to fish (fish meal based diets are much more palatable to carnivorous fish) and it contains about 10% fish oil (high in omega 3 polyunsaturated fatty acids). Many other proteins can be used as long as they are formulated properly into an overall dietary amino acid profile.


Just depends on what warm water fish you are feeding and what results you desire. For instance, when grown at 80 F, fingerling Hybrid Striped Bass growth varied significantly, depending on both type and content of dietary protein and content of fat. Catfish formulations are plant based, while good trout/salmon formulations are animal based (preferably fish based). Strictly carnivorous fish do not do as well on plant-protein based diets. Below, diets are described in terms of Protein/fat, so a 40/10 is 40% protein and 10% fat (the OLD reliable trout diet).

36/8 (plant based)... 280% Weight Gain X
42/4 (plant based)....347% " 1.24X
35/10 (fish based)....432% " 1.54X
44/8 (fish based)....487% " 1.74X
55/15 (fish based)....650% " 2.32X**

It is important to note that all of these diets were high quality, they were just designed for different purposes and vary greatly in cost. For instance the 36/8 is designed for channel catfish fingerlings and the 55/15 is designed for Atlantic Salmon fingerlings. The 55/15 may cost 4 times as much as the plant based 36, so the economics are certainly arguable... just depends.

**Additionally, the ultra high growth on the 55/15 should be taken with a grain of salt as it resulted in obese fish (HSB very efficiently lay down dietary fat in their abdominal cavity), indeed the whole-body fat of HSB fed the 55/15 was 62% greater than that of the fish fed the 42/4.



Well, today I see that Yahoo has a story on the importance of omega 3 fatty acids for us humans. For most of us, the source is fish - salmon, tuna, sardines, etc. I have not seen the data - but, for winter survival, the idea is that fish oil is a fluid. This enhance membrane fluidity. This is often cited as a reason for the role of PUFAs with brain function/development. When the water gets cold, the fish get cold. Therefore, it stands to reason that these fats benefit the animals in cold conditions. If the overall fatty acid profile has too much saturated fat, their fat reserves will solidify in cold water - like tallow in cold water. These PUFAs are important in many other aspects besides the physical properties....

Predatory fish get these fats from the smaller fish they consume. They do not synthesize the long chain PUFAs. The source is from algae and these fats are passed on to algae-eating zooplankton and fish and move up the food chain. Menhaden are excellent sources of the omega 3 PUFAs, because they are fatty fish and about 25% of their fatty acids are the long chain PUFAs. So, in a prepared diet, you need either a significant amount of certain marine algaes, or fish oil or meal (approximately 10% of fish meal is fish oil - as a side note... this is because fish meal is mechanically expressed, so it does not get all the fat out. In solvent-extracted meals - such as soybean meal - there is vurtually no fat left).

From

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=117723&page=1

and

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=29710&page=1

Thanks Eric

Interesting read Eric. I had a couple of minutes to play with the Optimal Bass last night. First thing that struck me was the smell. It's not like any fish food I've ever dealt with before. Rather than the fish smell of the old Aquamax it had a stink bait, or blood bait smell to it. It also had the fish oil smell, but not as strong as the stink bait smell. I did throw it out to my feed trained redears and they hammered it. So that was good to see. And it did continue to float indefinitely. I was a bit surprised that it didn't look as big as expected. If Aquamax 600 is 6mm and this is 9mm, it sure didn't seem to my eye that much bigger. But I didn't have any AM600 on hand to compare to.

NEDOC you said the bass food floated indefinitely. Does anyone else have the problem where the standard Optimal doesn't float very long? Seems like mine floats for maybe a minute and then sinks. Not that that is so terrible as some of my fish prefer to wait till it is lower in the water column before taking it, but I didn't know if a food advertised as 'floating' floats even when hydrated (indefinitely) or if that word can be used if it just floats 'initially' for a while.

Yes I do have that 'problem' with Optimal Bluegill. Or at least I have with my second and third bag. I did not have that problem with the first bag. 5-10% sinks slowly upon hitting the water. The rest begins to sink after a minute or two. And I've come to like it that way better. I'll test Optimal BG Jr. this weekend and see how it does.

As far as the Optimal Bass floating, I didn't hydrate any and try it. I may if I get a chance. But some of it floated several minutes beyond when the Optimal BG went below the surface. Hard to tell though because I have so many FHMs hitting both types of pellets that they eventually get pulled under by them or eaten by larger redears.

slow sink

Where did you find the Jr at?

I ordered a couple of bags of Optimal BG and attempted to order Optimal JR. Its not in commercial production yet but they were kind enough to send a sample.

Brian,

I'll trade you some Optimal jr. for the other bag of food that you were going to give me. Esshup sent me some samples recently.

Sounds good.

Different fish species have different nutritional needs, and I'm not talking about protein/fat content. With that, it changes on the age of the fish. For instance, in an aquaculture setting, the food can be tailored even tighter to individual species of fish, and the age of the fish. In a pond setting, where there are multiple species and multiple age classes, not so much. Mostly because you cannot tell a fish what food to eat or not to eat.

What sets Optimal apart is the testing they do, and the amino acid/micro nutrients that they put in the food - and that's not on the label because it's proprietary information.

I have HSB specific food from Optimal that they made for a customer and an extra bag showed up on my doorstep. It floats for about 10-20 seconds, then slowly sinks. The HSB hammer it. I am feeding it to the HSB in the cage. I am (in my pond) mixing Optimal BG food with Optimal LMB food, about 50/50 and throwing it thru my Texas Hunter feeder.

The Optimal guys will be swinging by here later on this month and will be taking fish back with them for testing. Since I have not been feeding YP and HSB specific food to those species in my pond, the test results may be interesting. I have been feeding Optimal BG food for over a year in my pond, and the LMB food for about 6-8 weeks.

The Optimal Jr. food is tailored for smaller fish to get them the jump start they need to become great fish.

Optimal is a bit different than the other fish food companies. If you want a specific food for your fish, you CAN buy it. They will make individual production runs to cater to your individual needs. TJ, you want a larger feed, you can get it. If you can't purchase 20,000 pounds, you can purchase a smaller amount, but it will have to be priced accordingly. I was told that they can make a special run as small as 50 pounds from the small mill, but I was afraid to ask what that would cost.

I talked to Cray last month about LMB food, and I think he ordered from them. I was on the road and thought that instead of being the go-between, I would have him just call Optimal and he could ask and get answers asap. I hope he chimes in here with his observations.

below is a little info i got from dustin concerning optimal feed sinking, size, and such.

It's a bit hard to say what may have been different about your first bag. Was the first (more "fishy" smelling) feed in a blue bag by chance?

Any differences in float or color can really only be attributed to the feed mill. We are very happy with our bluegill formulation and absolutely do not alter it.

Although floating and sinking can be impacted by the formulation, it is largely controlled by extrusion parameters. Earlier this year, we started production in new feed mill with a higher capacity. I have heard some feedback that the initial feed was a bit darker and had a few more sinkers in it. Based on customer feedback, we've done some re-calibrating and I think we're where we want to be now.

All this being said, we can make small custom runs of single size pellets for people wanting up to 5 tons, but (of course) it comes with a higher price tag.

Esshup I'm now on bag #4 of Optimal BG. I ordered one last fall, one earlier this spring (both white bags I believe) and now about 6 weeks ago I got 2 more in blue bags. The only bag that had the slow sinking feed was my second bag. At first it frustrated me that the feed slowly sank, and the fish seemed to not like it as much at first. By after a week or two I began to like it more and so did the fish!! So I have mixed emotions on which production line I liked most. The slow sinking feed (only 5-10% was slow sinking, the rest floated for quite a while) certainly seemed to help train some of my redears that were previously reluctant. So I liked that aspect of it. I wonder if the slow sinking feed may be more advantageous when dealing with redears and their feeding habits? An interesting thought I hadn't taken into consideration.

I have been mixing my Optimal LM with my BG at about a 15-20% rate. It has worked well, as I'm hand feeding still I'm always there to see the reaction. I'm feeding pretty much all BG and RES right now. I stocked 25 LMB with them back in July but have yet to see any, which doesn't mean they are not there. All the feed is eaten. Sometimes the LMB feed gets hit then pops back up, but very rarely anymore. Mine is 100% float as much as I can tell, was bought in July, and is in a white bag. My daughters have been fishing during feeding time with a small hook and worms/bobbers so I can see the size difference. You can EASILY tell the difference in the ones that are feeding and the ones that are not. We caught a few that looked just about like they did when put in, then some bigger, one that stretched from one end of my palm to the other and had a very nice fat belly, and great color. Will get pics next time we do that.

I received a sample of the LMB formula from essup today when I picked a bag of the BG formula, and the bass loved it. I saw no sinkers.( They ate it to fast!) I think next year I'll mix a ratio of the LMB and BG formula together so the bass wont eat all the smaller stuff.

Mike, my HSB are throwing the LMB food out of the water when they come up to eat it.

It will be interesting to compare it to the Purina LMB food when you get it. Please post here how the fish in your pond eat the Purina LMB food. I don't know of anyone that has done a side by side comparison.

Sure thing Scott, I am hoping to get it next week. (On order)

I have done an unscientific comparison in my water hole between Purina LMB, and the Optimal Bass Food. My pond is just under an acre and I am currently feeding the Optimal bluegill feed in it 3 times a day, 8am, 6 and 8pm all for 13 seconds. I fed the LMB and SMB by hand between 4-5 pm. It took a few feedings for the LMB and a few SMB to decide if they wanted to try the Purina or not. When they did, they ate it aggressively. If I overused the Purina, some BG would peck at it, and it would become waste and sink to the bottom. Additionally, I could never use the Purina in my feeder due to it's size, it won't throw it. There was also an exceptional amount of dust/waste in the bag too.
The Optimal when feed was immediately eaten by LMB, SMB, and larger BG. The bass would just eat more pellets as they do with the Optimal BG food I am feeding in my feeder. There was very little waste compared to the Purina. On a side note, I have just noticed that actually my water quality has been better this year. In past years I have fed Aquamax 400,500 and 600 while struggling with feed dust in the bottom of my feeder and watching it on the top of the water create a film. I probably could reduce the dust/waste easily before putting the feed in the feeder.
After watching this, I will use up my Purina LMB this year, and next year mix the Optimal LMB and BG feeds to become a more efficient feed. Thanks to Essup for the sample of Optimal Bass food!

Mike as much as you are feeding the feed that sinks might go to waste as you say.

But if you have hungry BG I suspect it gets eaten after sinking. I have purposely dropped a pile of sinking 32% catfish food to the bottom and watched with an Aqua-Vu camera. It has been my observation that BG actually prefer to eat feed from mid water or off the bottom than going to the surface for it. We only feed floating feed so we can observe the fish eating and see that it is eaten, not because it is the place the fish prefer to eat. When I stand on the dock feeding I often see a larger BG take a pellet after it has sunk into the water 6" but because I am standing there and they can see me they will not take it off the surface. They stay just deep enough to stay out of my sight.

I throw out some Aquamax LMB pellets sometimes along with my other feed. I don't have any LMB that take it as far as I know. But the BG will hit it and hit it till it softens enough for them to tear it apart and eat it or if it sinks I am certain they do not let it go to waste on the bottom. If they do not get it eaten a CC will. Often times on the surface the BG hit it till a CC comes along and takes it away from them. Of course if you do not have CC you don't have a cleanup crew other than maybe turtles. Which I have a bunch of feed trained turtles also that I am sure would take feed off the bottom should they find it.

I doubt if your LMB pellets sit wasted on the bottom, unless you are really feeding to saturation.

If you are feeding more food than they can consume, or if you are feeding in deep water with no aeration so there is a thermocline and anoxic water where the feed drops into, it might go to waste.

Mike:

Just like feeding high quality dog food, the more it can be metabolized by the fish, the less goes out the other end, and the less "pooper scooper" duty you have. In a pond that equates to less stuff to grow plants/algae.

I've heard some numbers tossed around and you'd be amazed at how much goes out the other end........

Just a note re pricing:

The difference between online sites has disappeared. Either way, with shipping to my address, it comes to $50 a bag for BG Optimal feed.

i have tried the lmb optimal pellets. i am curious how you all keep your bg from eating it, or maybe i was sent a sample of some that wasnt as large as you alls. as soon as i throw it the bg eat it instantly.

i have been using a few aquamax pellets this week and my bass are taking them pretty good. i have to hand feed them since they are too large for the feeder to throw.

i still can't get any locally, but thanks to a member here for sharing some of his. thanks bing.

Sounds frustrating. But it's not a total loss if the BG eat the LMB Optimal pellets: In the end, those BG will help feed the bass!

snrub,
The feeder I have has an adjustable output, so I have learned "back the output off a little and she will throw better." So I make sure the volume gets eaten in less than 2 minutes. I have noticed some bigger BG eating lower depth or when hand feed they will come up in the shade of my pier. As far as CC go, they are abundant. I believe they enjoyed the learning curve I had in the early days setting up my feeder. On a more positive note, my homemade aeration system is going strong 4 years running with no problems.
I am curious why you don't notice any LMB go after the Auqamax pellets? Do you see them go after other pellets?

Sounds like you have things going pretty darn good Mike.

Of all the fish in my pond it is the LMB that I am most disappointed in as far as reproduction goes. But first I have to admit that I rarely fish specifically for LMB. Having only been actively fishing regularly the past three years since we built this new pond, to date the BG and RES fishing interests me more than the LMB. I'm leaning towards some comments that Sprkplug and Shorty have made indicating that the LMB were more their trash fish there to control the BG population.

I have some very nice LMB estimated in the 4-6# range that friends catch occasionally and once in a great while I will catch one while fishing for BG. But I have yet to catch this year or last any 12" LMB or see any LMB fry swimming along the bank with the BG. I have an abundance of BG and in fact became worried enough this year of over population that we have removed about a hundred in the 6-8" range and ate them. Threw anything back over 8".

So I am questioning if my LMB are doing their job. All the ponds I am acquainted with in this area if left to their own devices will end up eventually LMB over populated with lots of small LMB. I keep waiting to start catching a bunch of small LMB while I'm fishing for BG but no luck.

So what I have been wondering is if the BG are so thick they are eating all the LMB fry and eggs or if my LMB are just not very prolific. This is the third year after stocking the LMB on September 2 2013 with 350 fingerlings in a 3 acre pond. I have lost a few and removed a few to move to my old pond, but with more than 100 per acre stocked I would think I should have had plenty of LMB.

It just puzzles me I'm not seeing any recruitment and also to address your question that I am not seeing at least a few LMB learning to hit the LMB pellets. The only reason I have the LMB pellets is that the feed dealer ordered in LMB pellets instead of the Aquamax MVP I ordered. I kept a couple bags to play with knowing the CC would eat them if nothing else would.

So that is my story on the LMB. Maybe I'm just too impatient. I built two small ponds and am raising extra forage in them in the anticipation that I would need it. Well quite the opposite so far as I have an abundance of forage and a shortage of LMB. Maybe that is a good problem to have, don't know. The LMB my friends catch seem to be fat and happy. But no pellet takers as far as I have seen.

You have a unique issue! I wonder if maybe you have so many BG and CC that they depress bass reproduction & survival.

Anyway, if the LMB are fat & happy, and you have plenty of nice BG, you must be doing something right.

Excessive numbers of BG can suppress LMB reproduction and fry survival. BG when starving be come more aggressive in seeking food items. They in very high numbers will raid bass nests of all the eggs before the eggs hatch.

Bill I think you have hit the nail on the head. Think I will get 25 or 50 LMB when it cools this fall, put them in my 1/10th acre sediment pond which has no predators, then fish most out as they get big enough to escape predation and move them to my main pond. That at least give another size class.

Anthropic my main concern is with excess BG eventually they will stunt. It seems like my larger ones are stalling out on growth.

Pan fish pond is my goal so I need lots of smaller bass to keep the BG numbers in check.

I have noticed a good bit of dust from my Optimal. Right now, with a lot of FHM, I think it is actually a good thing, but I worry about it next year after the LMB have wiped out the minnows. I don't think it is dust from the bag, but created as the feed goes thru the TH spinner. Feed I caught in a trash bag was much more broken up than what is in feeder.

Brian,

I was thinking the same thing. I bet that if you lowered the spin plate it would eliminate some issues.

Brian if you YOY BG they will eat most of that dust once they learn where it will be. At least mine do but I do feed from the shore line.

Chris I may try that next spring if the FHM are gone. Are you noticing the same thing?