Well I have learned what I did wrong last year with our perch pond and the feeder. When the feeder was set up when the water temp was around 50-55 at the surface it was kind of early spring.

They feed really well for about two and a half months then seem to completely stopped. I was banging my head on the wall wondering where did they go.

So I have been told that they do not need as much feed and may just be chilling not needing it. I was told that they must have turned to something different something natural like crayfish or minnows in the pond.

All to me sounded plausible and went along with it. Changed out the feed to a smaller feed for the minnows and let her go.

Well this spring I did the same thing and they did the same thing. Right around now they seem to just slow and stopped eating. It just so happened that there was two over cast days in a row and we were down at the pond when the feeder gos off. Wow the water boiled with perch. Now this happened two days in a row. The third day we go down there at 7:45 and nothing. The only difference is the sun was full clear sky. The wife says to me wonder if they would rather eat with more shade or less light.

bing gos the light bulb in my head...... The feeder is set on a clock timer more than just the day light hours. The days have been getting longer the day slowly stays lighter later. The perch didn't want to eat as soon as I was getting the feeder to go off. They still wanted to eat but were all on the bottom.

So I pushed the feed time back to 8:15 and 8:30 and now we have very happy perch.

Long story long here my perch seem to feed at a certain day light brightness than our clocks. Any one that sees their perch slow on feed try moving the time back a bit first.

Silly me.....

Cheers Don.

The timing of your post is amazing. I just changed my feeder's timing back to 7:45, 8:00, and 8:15. I may move it back by another half hour. I was seeing a fair number of YP at the feeder, but their activity seemed to be dropping off. I talked with TJ Saturday, and he made the timing change recommendations.
My earlier settings were more convenient for me, but maybe not so much for the YP.. I'll be back up there in a few days to see how they like the new settings. I'm hoping I see the same results you have.

In my pond, there is a tree that shades part of the water where the feed is thrown.

If I hand feed mid-day, the YP will feed in the shade but not in the sun. The feeder is set to throw approximately 1/2 to 1 hr. after sunrise and 1/2 to 1 hr. before sunset.

Is there an large advantage to feeding in the AM than in the PM? I could split the rate in half instead of all at the night feed?

Cheers Don.

Donno, I'm not sure since I'm not using food as their complete and only diet in the pond - there is natural forage.

But, if some can get full bellies 2x day vs. 1x day, I feel better about it.

Thanks for sharing that story! I have been messing around with training adult YP and didn't think about brightness as a variable. Dusk and dawn timer may be a good way go. Thanks again Don

I have found through 8 seasons my YP will feed during low light periods. I only feed 1 second increments every 15 minutes until nearly dark, also to encourage BG predation in low light conditions when predators have the upper hand ambushing from shadows in the main pond. I feed in 1 second increments so even on very windy days I won't have feed washing to shore. 6 one second throws daily beginning at 8 PM and I find minimal wasted food in the main pond. Try adjusting feeding times for YP to low light periods, either before sunrise or dusk or both. My timer is now set to 9 and 9:15 on my female YP pond. If I throw feed earlier, it's entirely ignored.

Good stuff TJ. We have been getting adult YP to take pellets using GSF as the trainers but wuth yours and Dons experience, I am really going to focus on low light feeding

I run two 3 second shots but find on windy days the feed makes it to shore.

I am going to try your approach with six one second shots every 10 minutes. Starting around 8:10.

We do have allot of natural feed as well and only feed about 100#'s of 5mm feed all year.

Cheers Don.

I don't know the low light feeding will apply to everyone, just sharing my experiences and hope they might apply elsewhere.

I can say the short feeding bursts are definitely the way to go so you can eliminate as much waste as possible for us on small ponds. You may notice that 6 seconds is too much, or too little, and adjust accordingly if you choose. I like the finite control shorter bursts allow us in order to fine tune feeding times. I wish we could control feeders with a mobile device from remote location and adjust feeding times or shut down on very windy/cold days if we wanted. Especially in early Spring or late Fall I would like to shut down the feeder for a few days during a cold snap, but it necessitates a 30 minute round trip to the farm I sometimes just can't justify. I hate to think about all that feed going to waste on the shorelines, impacting my water quality.

My YP feed less when temps average upper 80s and 90s during summer and water temps get into the 80s. I think they are seeking coolest water above thermocline, and are reluctant to head to surface for pellets. I will back off the feeding times in my YP pond during peak of Summer and maybe only feed 1 second daily until Fall approaches and temps back down.

Hope some of this is applicable to others. Definitely keep us posted on your results - good information for the forum!

Good info guys! I just moved back up to the sticks last week, so the YP pond is getting closer every day.

MN - Remember that gizmo I showed you a while back? I just added the Sun Position function block. You input your data like latitude, longitude, drag the real time clock variables into it which include year, month, day, hour, minute, time zone and daylight savings time... It outputs the sun's position, Elevation, Azimuth, Zenith Angle, Sunrise Hour/Minute, Sunset Hour/Minute for your location. It continuously run's this algorithm to provide the output data, so no periodic adjustments required.

With the instruction set available, the logic is a simple compare with current time and sunrise/sunset times. You can offset times +/- to fire your feeder's and such.

You can also add a photocell to one of the analog inputs to measure the sun's intensity.

Something to park in the back of your head.

JKB... . It just might fit perfectly into the next device I'm thinking about.

Those controls open sooooo many options. Now only if I was smart enough to apply them.

TJ- You start on that concept for remote controlled feeding. Cool idea!!

TJ - Remote is quite easy to do from anywhere in the world, but it can get expensive.

Texas Hunter would have to build this into their control, or you scrap theirs and add your own. Which would be easy, but expensive.

If you spend some time with it, you should pick it up pretty easy.

Function blocks simplified this stuff a bit.

The algorithm for sun position is rather lengthy, so am glad someone spent the time and wrote the function block.

TH builds awesome feeders - but their timers are poorly designed - but are reliable. Competitors offer something called "the timer" and it's a much better tool - it's a third party manufactured item, but won't work with TH feeders.

I would love to be able to shut off or adjust timing of feeders on my pond based on wind direction and other variables. I'd also love to install a feeder cam to verify activity. All these things are independently available, but how one combines them and creates an after market product is beyond me. I can say I'd buy one in a heartbeat, though.

Does anyone build a feeder with a dawn/dusk light sensor?

TJ - Any insight as to why "the timer" won't work with the TH feeders? Instructions say, 2 wires to the battery and 2 wires to the motor. Only thing I can think of is the load may be more than "the timer" can handle. If that's the case, it's an easy solution with interposing relays. Not sure what the scoop is tho.

Tying all this independent stuff together requires that the "stuff" has output capabilities that the gizmo tying all this stuff together can read, and the gizmo needs to be programmable to control desired outputs. Kinda difficult to do unless you step into the world of industrial controls. Arduino is a low cost popular control for hobbyist, but outside of looking at it a few times, I wouldn't want to waste my time. I like reliability.

I think Scott told me it's because TH has a two stage motor, but I'm the wrong guy to discuss anything motor related. I can grow fish, a great garden and lawn, coach youth sports and blow things up - that's essentially my universe of expertise.

While we're shooting for the moon, put me down for a feeder with some means to gauge fish activity on the surface after the first burst of dispensed feed hits the water, and adjust the feed amount accordingly.

Looks like they have 2 motors for their two stage feeders. I'll ask Scott a bit more about the feeder.

3D imaging sensors are coming down in price

That would be rather difficult to do tho.

C'mon, rise to the challenge!

Money would be the obstacle imposing the difficulty.

I put 30 little HBG from Stony Creek in my Mom's former Koi pond. They have been hiding within the rocks of the waterfall since Saturday, only poking out once in a while at night. Tossed in some Zeigler 1/8" floating tonight and got a pretty good response for the first time.

Here my thoughts on the small perch and other fish that start off early learning to eat bugs. I have some LED flood lights that are under water lights in the pond. Right about now for timing the bugs are really attracted to the lights and over time end up falling into the water. Guess who is there to scoop them up.

Our yearling perch who do not know how to eat pellets yet are right there eating up the bugs. They slowly float up with out much movement on their side then just take the bug with the side of their mouth.

I think this behavior is what may make them so easy to pellet train as well as why they may lean more to the dusk or low light to feed as well.

Love the idea of a light sensing trigger for the feeder. Light sensing, wind direction, and strength would be a hot selling add on.

Cheers Don.

Lack of funding always seems to be my major stumbling block.

The HBG should be an interesting experiment. I'm torn between advising you to add a single LMB once you detect signs of spawning, or cutting back on the feed and letting them consume their own offspring. Of course with 30 fish you may not have over 2-3 females, so you could try sight fishing them out, once they grow large enough to cause a potential problem.

Give me one with a rain gauge. My fish do not eat feed well when it's raining, so a feeder with a means to detect precipitation and suspend feeding operations until the shower passes might help me out.

I know absolutely nothing about facial recognition systems, but my feeble guess is that such systems map the face, and compare it against an image stored in the system. Features might be reduced to measurements, which could easily be compared against the "stock" photo already on file. A certain percentage matches, 90-100% ??, and it says ok. Lesser percentage matched, no go.

Building on that, let's have that stock photo be of the pond's surface on a calm day, and compare that image to one taken after an initial, test burst of feed hits the water. Analyze the difference caused by the feeding efforts of the fish. In this case however, if the new surface matches the stock photo, or within a predetermined percentage, then very little feeding is occurring and the feeder shuts down without dispensing any more food.

But if the measurements and the math indicate a greater percentage of change AFTER the test burst hits the water, then open up and feed away.

The problems and issues to overcome would be numerous. Windy days causing surface disturbances, leaves and debris falling on the surface, etc. And I'm sure JKB is right....it wouldn't be cheap. Still, fun to envision.

It's just a teeny pond

Maybe "fishal" recognition

You could probably tie a number of these items into a Micro PLC that would not cost much more than a replacement timer. Only problem is you would need to learn how to program it. Some of this software can be a PITA and a tad clunky.