A couple of days ago I ran out to the pond (an hour drive) to check on it. The water keeps rising (yay!) nicely, the TH feeder works flawlessly (yay!), but ...

But I saw the feeder go off, 4 seconds at 1pm, and there was a grand total of one fish taking a pellet off the surface. One fish in ten minutes. (not so yay)

Now the water is murky, six inches clarity, as it is still filling. And it was stocked with mostly smaller CNBG and RES (along with FHM) just three weeks ago. And I'm sure some of the feed eventually sank and was consumed at some point. Even if it didn't get eaten, it serves to improve fertility in a low pH pond.

But the feeder has been running for three weeks. I expected something more. Maybe I need smaller feed for the mostly small CNBG?

Or is this pretty normal in new BOW and I'm overreacting?

Any ideas?

Have you tried feeding closer to sunrise, or sunset? Six inches of clarity doesn't lend itself to optimum feeding conditions for sight orientated species, either.

Your fish and your pond are new, and you said they were small? Give it some time, and see if it improves. Long distance ponds can be tough, as I would normally recommend hand feeding during the later evening with hydrated feed to encourage your fish to begin eating.

anathropic, a few thoughts. First, if they're not feeding well yet, I'd probably cut the feeder back to 1-2 seconds. No reason to throw the food if they're not eating it yet. The rising water may also be slowing them down. All fish are different, but normally when water falls, they hunker down, when it rises, they scatter. Since your pond is still filling, they still may just be cruising around.

Like Tony, I like a later feeding also. As the water warms, your CNBG should become more active and feed better. My feeders earliest throw right now is 10 am, and every 3 hours after that.

Finally, we're heading into winter, and CNBG just don't always feed as hardily or regularly as when the water's warmer.

IMHO, you're not overreacting, you're just excited about your fish. We all get that way whether we say it or not.

Hope this helps.

My thoughts are that in a newly stocked pond there should be plenty of natural groceries available which would explain why you are not seeing much pellet feeding. Give it time.

Agree 100%, and I often recommend hand feeding, same place, same time daily [towards low light] a few tosses, hunker down low profile, and watch. Consider hand feeding until enough fish are feeding that can clean up a 1 second throw from feeder in 10 min or less. Until that happens, you're only wasting food and pumping nutrients into the pond which, as we all know, can contribute to water quality related issues down the line.

My BG feeding slows significantly in the 60s, and shuts off in the mid 50s altogether. Water temps will help explain the slower take to the food.

Gape capability of your fish is also a variable - a 2-3" BG is only able to peck at an AM 500 or Optimal pellet. Depending on the size, your fish may be too small to handle the pellet. I think the standard method to determine appropriate pellet size is 1/4 measurement of gape.

Hope some of this helps - I'd shut down the feeder and save yourself some money and hand feed the same time daily, towards evening, until your fish are cleaning up all the pellets you throw.

I see from your first post that hand feeding everyday is not an option for you. FWIW If it was my pond, I would take the advice to reduce feed and go with 1 second in the evening, assuming your water temp is still warm enough.

Should probably add that you might have just observed on the wrong day. Even my usually heavy feeding CC had days when they wouldn't come to pellets last summer, usually a weather front was the cause.

Thanks for the feedback!

Based on the comments, it is probably unrealistic to expect an enthusiastic feeding response when A) the pond is still rising; B) the water is murky; and C) the water is cold. The fact that most of my CNBG are pretty small also doesn't help.

So I will dial it back until spring warms things up again. Also, my next order of Optimal feed will hopefully be multisized stuff that the smaller CNBG can handle better. By spring the water should be clearing a bit what with plant growth and reduced erosion, too.

I know the fish are there, because when I got close to the water I could smell them quite strongly. Dill pickles plus a bit of funk, a delight to the nose of fisherman. I usually smell it in spring near BG beds.

Frank, good decision. As you know I am no expert, but since I am located close to you, I thought I would pass this along. My surface water temps are running 10 degrees higher this year. The CNBG are feeding a little at 2 of the 3 TH feeders. I have tuned them back to 1 and 2 seconds and have set the time @ 4PM, looking for the warmest time of the day. They CNBG are feeding, but at a slower pace. Some of the fish being 8" and some 2 or 3" due to fall spawn. And after stocking some HSB a few weeks back, I think I am seeing some of them feed at the feeders. They are hard to see because they move pretty fast, so I am guessing, because they feed a little different when watching verses watching the CNBG feed. Hard to explain, you just have to see it.
Hope this helps, I know its hard see what's going on, We can't see under water as newbies.

Tracy

Anth what size BG were stocked in your pond? They can't eat if they can't fit the pellet in their gape. If you stocked 3-4" BG you're going to need a small pellet - something AM 400 sized.

Tracy, thanks for the encouragement & info. I'm just starting out so don't yet know what is normal & what is not!

I think you are right, TJ: Size matters! I had a few hundred 4 to 5 inch CNBG stocked, but thousands of smaller ones. Probably should put up another feeder with AM 400 and see if it makes a difference.

Also have over 100 pounds of FHM, but they are so small I doubt they can do much with any of the feed until it softens and sinks.

My FHM eat the heck out of Optimal, unless I feed it to them in the middle of the day. I think I'd change your feeding time.

Anth I would stick with the Optimal - AM 400 has sinking pellets, if your fish aren't aggressively feeding, most of that will sink to bottom and become excess nutrients. Your 4-5" BG shouldn't have an issue with the Optimal feed IMO - smaller fish probably will have to wait until it's hydrated and soft so they can pick at it.

I realize you have waited your entire life to build your dream, spent thousands of hours researching and dollars building and are eager to get rolling. However, something to consider would be to wait until the BOW fills, water clarity improves, then resume a feeding schedule. Just a thought - certainly it's up to you and I understand the need to get things rolling.

Since you can't hand feed, sorry I missed that in your original post, I agree with dialing it back to a 1 second throw daily if you want to keep feeding.

TJ,

Are you sure the 400 is sinking? I am feeding 400 and it's floating.

The 400 I used in the past was float and sink, but then again it's produced in a different facility now, who knows what happened to the recipe. Here's the product description from Purina site:

Purina® AquaMax® Grower 400

100% nutritionally complete for starting fish and early growth phases for both carnivorous and omnivorous species. Purina® AquaMax® Grower 400 is a sinking product in a in a 3/32" extruded pellet with approximately a 50% float rate.

My small BG seemed to like the AM400. I would call it more 90% sink but it is a very slow sink. For small fish, I throw it close to the bank where the small BG hang out. They really like it best on the bottom anyway, but will hit it on the top too.

I fed three bags of it total and just finished up the last about the first of December. Fed about a half gallon a day from the time I got it till it was gone.

Was going to try Optimal (and will next year) but had enough feed on hand to just finish out the season so held off.

Makes sense. The stuff I have mostly floats.

My newest Aqua Max 500, 600 and LMB all changed in size, shape, and smell - who knows what happened to the 400 - anyone's guess at this point. Historically when I used it I remember about a 50% sink rate, per their website. I only used it in my cages where I could monitor uneaten pellets with AquaVu Micro camera.

I'm not sure what it takes to make feed float - fat, air, ??????

But I wonder if it is a lot harder to control the smaller the pellet?

Air is usually what they use to make the pellets float. A pellet has to be a certain large enough size to get enough of the air-to-pellet mixture ratio so it floats. Thus as the pellets are reduced to a small size such as AM400 some will float and some will sink depending on extrusion and probably the extrusion rate?

I have a small number of RES from this years hatch in my aquarium. I have been running the Optimal through a coffee grinder then sifting the smaller pieces out through a strainer. The larger crumble pieces I am feeding will float for a little bit then slowly sink as they hydrate. I have done the same thing with Aquamax in the past and I can tell you that my RES definitely prefer the Optimal. When running it through the grinder both types of feed come out in the same random sizes and shapes.

The FHM are good scavengers.

After I stocked my main pond with BG and FHM and before any predators were added, I went scuba diving a couple times. Didn't matter where I stopped at in the pond, deep or shallow, as long as I was above the thermocline (before I installed aeration) within a few minutes the FHM would find me. After a minute or three laying still on the bottom I could feel them first start pecking and pulling the hairs on my legs. Then they would move to my arms and head (laying on the bottom of the pond). If I stayed there long enough eventually I would see a few in front of my mask but since a diving mask looks like a great big mouth opening, they avoided my face most of the time.

This is without predators. Once you have predators the FHM are going to be forced to whatever refuge they can find and will not be out in open water much. But before predators they will be all over the pond and pick up any fallen feed in short order unless you are just feeding way too much. I could take feed down in a pop bottle, open it and whoosh some feed out and stay still, and it would be a frenzy so violent they would stir the mud on the bottom till I could no longer see them.

I also used my Aqua-view, dropped some feed down and witnessed the same thing. They would swarm it till it got so muddy I could no longer see through the camera.

My limited non-exspert opinion is that fish much prefer to eat feed off the bottom than floating. We only feed floating so we can enjoy watching the fish and to monitor if they clean it up. If a person has a way to monitor intake well enough, my opinion is the fish would prefer the feed to sink slowly.

Shorty I think my wife would frown on me putting fish food in her nice coffee maker. Ok if I tell her Shorty said it was ok??

Seriously one fish farmer I know says he has his wife watch for old blenders at yard sales she goes to and if she can buy working ones at five bucks or so he uses them like you are the coffee grinder. He also grinds feed to feed his small fry.

IMHO if the volume a pellet occupies weighs less than an equivalent volume of water, it will float. I suspect density of the pellet is the key factor. Floating pellets are less dense than equivalent size pellets that sink, i.e. floating pellets weigh less than equivalent size sinking pellets. Following that logic, a fish that consumes a sinking pellet gets more nutrition than his pond buddy that ate an equivalent size floating one.

Good news! I checked the feeder today and the fish were taking the Optimal very actively!!!

This was relatively large stuff, but they kept eating it for at least 15 minutes. When activity slowed, I broke pieces in half, about 1/8 to 1/4 inch each, and threw them in by hand. They loved it and kept eating for as long as I was willing to keep feeding.

Based on the very warm temps and what I saw, I will continue to feed moderately. However, I intend to get some smaller feed to go along with the bigger stuff.

Awesome news!

The last production run of the food is different (size wise) than the previous run. I think we have landed on a mixture of pellet sizes that will feed a variety of sizes of sunfish in the pond. Here's a picture with a penny in the picture for a size comparison. We tried for 3 different size pellets, all the same diameter, just different lengths. Unless we get a lot of feedback for a change, this is where this particular Sunfish food will stay at.

Excellent! Look forward to getting & using this, Scott. Thanks for listening to your customers.

That's one thing that I really, really like about this company. They listen to the feedback and change things to help more effectively feed the fish in the pond.

we need to talk to stubby steve about making some lures this shape and size. his replica of aquamax was super good at my old pond.

Might consider making a separate "starter" version with pellets about half the size of the smallest in the picture. Something that would replace AM400. It would be good for ponds recently stocked with fingerling fish.

The small BG really go for the AM400 thrown around the bank in a foot or so of water.

snrub, funny you mention that. We had that conversation last night. I don't know how large of a mover it would be for normal pond owners, but I can see where fish farms/hatcheries that feed their fish would use more of it.

With a "normal" run of 1,000 bags, I wonder how long the inventory would last? Also, small fish need a different formulation than larger fish for optimal growth, so the formula would have to be different.

There IS a crumble starter food that is produced now, for smaller fish, but it isn't a floating food, and the formulation is a LOT different than the Optimal Sunfish food. It runs $5/per pound due to the ingredients.