I was wondering how do I train bass to eat aquamax. I was thinking about buying already feed trained bass but my pond is filled with fingerling size bass could I just train them in a tank then let them go back in the pond.

There have been a number of posts here about this topic, but I don't know that any jump out at me as being clear or definitive on training non-feed trained LMB. I know some folks have had real success with SMB, but not sure about LMB. I've had a single LMB in an aquarium for about a year now and he refuses to touch a pellet. Worms, crickets, grasshoppers, feeder fish - he'll take 'em all, but he refuses to touch a pellet. I've succeeded in training BG, but they're pretty easy since they seem to be the seagull of the fish world - if it's in front of them, they'll eat it.

I'm actually just starting to work on about 30 YOY BG that my wife and kids netted yesterday. We tossed them in to a little aquarium and I ground up some of the Burris feed I use in our pond and they seemed to go after it pretty well. If you start with YOY LMB in a tank and they get hungry enough, you may well be able to get them to take pellets. Let us know if you try it. I think that captivity paired with no other real food source is probably a good motivator to get them eating what you want them to eat, then transitioning them back to a pond may well lead to success with feeding. I doubt you can do it in the wild.

I'm having a little luck with bass fingerling eating a little feed in the pond, but not really taking off yet. I agree that if you can get them into a tank and feed them ( I have a few in a 40 gallon tank) they'll eat it. But I just wonder what'll happen when they get back in pond and see all the minnow? Good luck and let us know how it comes out.

Might ask Omaha what he thinks

I think if you can get them trained and have the space to over winter when you put them back in the spring they will be used to the pellets and continue to eat them.

I think they will eat some minnows and BG as well but when the feed comes out they will take the easy meal.

Commercial hatcheries feed train bass when they reach about 2 inches by concentrating them in tanks and warming the water to increase metabolism. It's imperative the tanks are kept clean and many add formalin or something similar to keep bacteria down in this crowded conditions.

The larger a bass is the more difficult feed training will be.

If it was me, this time of year I would bring them inside into an RAS or flow through with heated water and concentrate them dense enough to allow competitive feeding to take place. Start with natural feed and gradually phase into hydrated pellets and then hopefully dry pellets.


Buying feed trained bass would be much easier and cheaper!

Especially if they are larger than 2 inches or were acclimated to live feed before feed training. Additionally I have found a certain percentage of feed trained bass revert to natural feed exclusively, and even the regular feed trained bass won't pass up an easy live meal.

I've feed trained most of my fish by first getting them to relate food to me... They see me and know it is feeding time. First they are fed what they really like, small minnows, worms, etc... Then after a couple months of this, I switch to freeze dried feed. The fish may reject this at first, but with a little hunger they'll except it. Last, you switch from freeze dried food to pellets. Again, they may initially reject them but eventually if hungry they'll take it. This has worked for with with the easy to train like BG and GSF, harder to train like black bass and even harder to train like crappies. Walleyes and pickerel, well never did figure them out.

The little tank I just set up a few days ago with about 25 BG from fry to 1.5 inches have taken to the finely crushed Burris feed I use in the pond, and have done so almost instantly. I'm pretty amazed as how easily they've accepted it. Of course the water in the tank is now nasty looking and smelling, but hey, that's a small price to know I have a chance of raising a number of these to decent sizes for a spring release. I think it may make a difference for the water quality when they can take whole pellets.

Make sure you have some quality filtration and do weekly water changes of about 1/3. I would also add a bit of salt as well.

Solid filtration is the one thing that I probably lack right now, but this was a quick throw together with some stuff we had for a little 5 gallon tank and a few things I grabbed at the store. I'm looking right now for some deals in our local person-to-person sales rag for big tanks and plan to move my LMB into a big one and then move these little guys up to the 30 gallon which has pretty good filtration, about to get better as I'm planning to pick up a bio-wheel type filter to go with the two submersibles I have in there now. Water changes are also a part of the regular maintenance, but it's only been about 4 days now, so probably nothing till this weekend.

When talking salt, what do you recommend and how much per gallon?

Todd, I've also heard good things about the small bio-wheel filters for aquariums so I ordered one for my 40 gal. tank.
http://www.aquariumguys.com/penguin350b.html

Ditto to what CJ said!

I also don't want to burst your bubble Todd but bluegill are very very easy to feed train.

The cool thing is that I learned that with those in the pond, but it was still neat to see them take to the feed so readily at this small size. My wife and daughters caught all of these and we were really hoping there might be some LMB fry in the mix, but it looks right now like they are all BG, so I'll have to stick with my "accomplishments" as they are for now!

Bubble still intact!

Hey, that's exactly what I was looking for in our local stores, AP, but didn't see anything I was wild about. Thanks for the link.

Good deal!

you can make a pretty simple bio filter out of a 5 gallon pail, some pvc, and scrub pads,,
http://www.skippysstuff.com/biofiltr.htm

i'll be adding one to my indoor system before i get my red claw crayfish

O.K. short term or in a pond where decomposition is taking place naturally, but I'd be concerned about too much organic matter building up in a closed system. Eventually your heterotrophs will take over your autotrophic bacteria and you will have problems. Just my two cents.

Without good mechanical filtration augmenting your biological filtration you're living dangerously.

JKB?

Sorry for the delay... About a tsp per gallon.

Thanks, Travis. Also, iodized or non?

If you can get them to eat the pellets in the aquarium they will continue to eat them when you put them back in the pond as long as you consistently feed them. It worked for me. Now I can hook my bass with pellets and bread, "Yes bread".