Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Perch Feed Training in Progress!

Here is the completed pier with Bug light (to attract phototactic perch*) and belt feeder attached to the end of the pier. Last night I observed at least a dozen perch fry of about an inch in length milling around under the light. Seemed to be after zooplankton and weren't interested in the powdered fish fry feed yet.

If anyone is interested I will keep you posted.

P.S. The Belt feeder is from Catmandoo. Once again much appreciated Ken!



I'm going to try a night picture, but I'm not sure how it will come out. Since this pond is recessed with high banks around it and a privacy fence to bounce the light back, the light illuminates the entire pond like a room. Kind of neat.

*Yellow perch are attracted to light until they are about 1 1/2 inches -- hence the term "phototactic." After that they become photoneutral.

Nice setup.
We usually bring ours inside at an inch or so, and start them on a combo of mash/#1 from the same belt feeders, depending on the size. we try to leave them out in the ponds as long as possible/food holds out. Sometimes add a little krill meal,or hand broken freeze dried krill, again depending on the fishes' size,as we do with the LMB, but don't bother to moisten it like with the bass.

The YP take to it MUCH faster than any other species we fool with. They will ball up under the feeders, literally to the point where you'll squash them when cleaning the tanks!

Never tried the light thing. YP are one of my favoritwe fish, bot hin general, and in terms of culturing them.Keep us posted.Thanks

Yes, Cecil, please keep us updated.

The feeder sure looks a lot better at the end of a dock, instead of collecting dust on a table in my basement.

Good luck, and keep us informed.

Ken

JHM,

As usual thanks for the great information. Unfortunately I'm not set up for inside tanks yet so I've opted to keep them in the pond and attempt to feed train them under the light. I also only need a few hundred of the top growers annually so I should be able to cull out the ones that are not feed trained at harvest.

I've got some freeze dried krill I can break out.

I only saw about a dozen one incher's last night chasing zooplankton under the light. Should I be seeing more or will more and more show up when I run the light on a nightly basis?

Hard to say about seeing more at the light, as I've never tried it. Years ago, I'd cruise the pond edges at night with one of those zillion candle power hand held spotlights, but now I just pull a small seine if I'm that curious. Most species will start cruising the edges when they are out of natural food. We also use a plankton net daily to see what our food base is. You'd be surprsied just how fast they can graze it down: We've had tons of daphnia one day, then nothing in a day or two, and the fish will start cruising.

IF, for some reason, we can't bring them inside at that point, we'll set up belt feeders around the edges, out in a few feet of water. Most species will start to gather pretty quickly, exception being LMB and SMB, at least in our experience. Those we HAVE to bring inside ,and start feed training, unless we have another pond ready/full of food.We have a couple ponds that get tons of fairy shrimp (which will REALLY keep your bloom down/gone). Sometimes we'll move the bass into those ponds and they make short work of the shrimp. Usually in 3-5 days, if they're big enough to get on them.

I'm not really sure, but with some species, at least in our tank culture experience, there seems to be a density dependent response to artificial feeding: if we don't have a certain density threshhold, they are slower to take to the feed and less aggressive in their feeding. Maybe a competion thing, esp noticeable with the bass, but with all species to a degree.

Our situatuion is different in that if they don't eat our feed in a tank situation, they go hungry! If given the choice, many will go right back on natural food. We've moved feed trained LMB back into ponds, with belt feeders set up, but as soon as some get a jump on the others, they use the feeders as a buffet, and gorge on their kin! In the tanks, we grade them a LOT!

I'd keep the feeders going during the day as well. I'm betting you'll start to see more and more show up for an easy meal!

I've seen that as well with my cage culture. I'm building smaller cages these days to capitalize on that phenomenon. Plus the biggest cages (up to 10 X 10 feet) are a pain to move around, clean, and pull up for harvest.

For the past couple of weeks I've noticed something coming up to feed that I couldn't really identify. My water has had only about 10 inches of visibility. I knew they weren't BG, CC, or the few trout that were left (I gave up on them -- as the water hit 72 yesterday.) Over the last couple of days, the water has warmed considerably, and it has also cleared considerably to well over two feet. The new moochers at the feed are LMB. There are a couple dozen of them between about 5-8 inches that come up below the pellets and slowly suck them in. Larger LMB seem to be swimming the periphery, but not eating. I'm not sure what this will mean to long term BG size and population. It sure was unexpected.

Sometimes fish learn by association. But many times folks think it's astonishing the bass have learned to eat pellets, when in fact they were probably trained to at the supplier. Were these naturally hatched or were they originally from a supplier as fingerlings?

Heck, it really doesn't surprise me. Any wild animal or fish will soon wise up when the buffet rolls out every day...it's just a matter of time. The food on the buffet menu may not please all, but it can provide a different taste, there are some who will smell and learn to eat...there are others who will simply pick off the the prey feeding on the food.

Not a surprise but not that common for nonfeed trained wild bass don't you think Eastland? I do know even when bass are crowded in a tank as fingerlings -- where they have nothing else to eat --- there are still some that refuse to eat the pellets and edn of dying of starvation. To qualify that a little, with each succeeding generation -- where the nonfeeders are weeded out -- the acceptance of pellets gets better.

Maybe we can have one of the experts that feed trains fish comment? Todd Overton? Anyone?

I sure don't pretend to be an expert on this as I am a newbee to feed training fish as you can see!

All my bass have been in the pond for many generations. I don't think any have been added in years, and certainly none since I've owned the pond.

Then they learned by association. Sounds like another benefit of the trout!

Cecil, I think you could be right. At least for now, I've seen nothing but positive effects from the winter trout.

Tonight we had a short thunderstorm. Afterwards, the pond was extremely still, and the light was perfect to see well into the unusually clear water.

With about 15 inches of rain over the last six weeks, the pond had been over the emergency spillway from early April until about two days ago. It really seems have to flushed a lot of stuff out, including nutrients. The water is still pretty high, and up onto the lawn, which has turned into 12 inch weeds. Lots of polliwogs hiding in the grass.

Tonight when I fed, I saw numerous marauding schools of 5 to 6 LMB in the 5-7 inch category. For the first time, I also saw several bass up to about 10 inches that were taking pellets. Tonight the pellet eating bass were much more aggressive than they had been before. The marauding schools would slowly swim up to a batch of pellets, and then slam them really hard and fast. They'd swim a few feet away, and then repeat. The BG and CC were far more genteel.

LMB, BG, and CC spawning should start soon. The water went from the high 50s to the mid-70s in the last couple of days. I'm not seeing nests yet, but several really big bass are starting to guard certain areas. The female bluegill, and a couple of catfish I caught recently, look like balloons. They are definitely ready to lay eggs.

Tonight there was still one trout eating pellets, but his hours are numbered based on the water temperature.

We had a great holiday meal of beer-battered BG and crappie this afternoon.

Ken

Cecil -- sorry for hi-jacking the thread. How are the perch doing?

No worries about hijacking the thread.

I had about 100 under the light tonight. Now that I can see them closer they measure about 3/4 inches in length. I'm feeding them some krill powder and regular fry powder, which they seem to be very interested in and feeding on as long as it sinks.

Here's a close up that seems to make them look stouter and more like fatheads when in person they look more pointy headed and torpedo shaped.

God I hope they are not fatheads! I do recall I pumped in some water from a pond that has fatheads to inoculate the pond with some zooplankton! What if I'm all excited and they are not perch!

I think I'm going to go outside and look at them again to reassure myself!

Update:

I was able to scoop up four of them. Close up I'm pretty confident they are yellow perch. Yippee!

Update 2:

I got a really close look at them today and saw a spiney dorsal fin! That pretty much rules out fatheads to me!

Bill Cody also says they would be too big for fatheads if they were hatched this year this far north.

Whew! I was worried their briefly!

BTW I did completely drain this pond except for some puddles and limed it which normally kills any remaining fish. However I found out from experience in another pond that fatheads can survive heavy liming!

The camera adds 10 milligrams.

I heard video adds 10 lbs. to people. Same concept?

Cecil, plan to do a photographic series of the perch as they grow. I will advise you with technical info as things proceed.

Sounds good Bill. I'm game.

Update,

Tonight just after dark there were at least a few hundred under the light vs. only about 100 last night. They are getting hungry as I stopped fertilizing the pond, which produces the phytoplankton that the zooplankton graze on, which in turn the yellow perch feed on.

Update:

I saw a school of perch fry on the other end of the pond today and I could see the bars on them. I don't see any bars on the ones under the night light. These fish may be slightly older than the ones under the feeder on the opposite end of the pond, hence why their bars are appearing ahead of the others. (Although they appear to be the same size.) Or the bars may be just more visible in bright sunlight. I had eggs from three different sources and some were farther ahead than the others.

I've stopped fertilizing with cottonseed meal and the pond is getting a green hue and getting clearer by the day. I want this so the perch will be more likely to feed on the artifical feed.

I'm seeing perch in the shallows almost all the way around the pond on sunny days as the water clears. Looks like a few thousand fish. Now I hope I don't have too many!

How about a pic of the fry/yoy. I don't recall anyone posting such a pic.

Can do. They are up to 1 1/4 inches (28 mm) Measured one and it was larger then the 3/4 inches I thought they were.

Bill Cody tells me they will grow 1 mm per day or about 1/2 cm per week at this stage.

Stay tuned.