Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Recs for a feeder??

I see the Hunter looks awesome - but expensive..
Any other good, reputable brands people recommend> I saw the Foreverlast at Mack's PW and it looked pretty good.

thanks

Ther are a few good feeders out there but IMHO the Hunter is the best one . Mine is still new but a neighbor has one that is ten years and still going . Some don't have a blower to keep the fines and dust out

I have been using a Sweeney since 2008 in a pond I manage for my boss.
You can check it out on youtube. my video is called Catfish farm.

If you want your fish to grow fast, multiple feedings per day will get the job done. Feeding once a day is not going to cut it.

I can grow out Channel cat fingerlings to eating size ( the size Southern folk prefer that is 10 to 12 inches long, from March to Sept.

The key is in feeding your fish 5 percent of their body weight per day.
Spread out over the course of the day.
During the warm periods I will feed them on a schedule of 8am 11am 2am 5am. That's the whole point of having a programmable feeder.
Hope this helps someone.

Feeding times are highly variable depending on species and your goals - multiple feeding times often are employed. However, feeding 1x daily actually can work for you, again, depending on species and your goals. Let us know what you want to do, we can help with our experience in programming feeding routines.

In terms of feeder brands, I have personal experience with 5 makes. Texas Hunter in my experience has been the most reliable and what I recommend to my friends and clients, but Sweeney also makes a strong product. They went through a reorg a while back - not sure of their current status nor how it affected customer service or product availability, if it did at all. Lots of loyal Sweeney guys on the forum - just something to keep in mind and check out before you purchase one. Diamond, Aqua Pro, and the others fall short of my personal demands for a variety of reasons, but might work just fine for some. Not my intent to ding their reps - just don't perform up to my needs. If I were to invest in a single feeder, however, it would be TH - hands down. Never had a single issue - 8 yrs old and works as well as the day it was purchased. There's a reason they are pricey - that purchase does smart! Look for late winter sales, you can shave off 10% or so typically.

I paid around 600$for mine at the hunters extravaganza in Houston this last year discounted for being a display

Pat W

Pat, smart move. The last day of vender heavy expo's can really save you some money. It's often not worth the shipping costs for venders to repack and ship display models back to the office.

Hautlynk, this might be an option for you.
TH hanger

Thanks for the advice. I guess I'll ask here since you guys offered up..
I have a 17 acre reservoir. We have a LOT of water coming through that prevents us from being able to maintain the chemistry the way that we would like to. Therefore, no algae blooms. I talked to the Aggies and got a suggestion: instead of trying to maintain the food chain through chemistry,do it through a good feeding program.
We are into year 2 now with 17k CNBG and 300 LMB - plus a few CC and whatever native black bass, crappie, gar, bowfin,etc. were there to start.came downstream.
We are contemplating feeding from three locations. It would be nice to have 4, but geography and resources kinda make it tough. We have been feeding with a couple of deer feeders we have converted for fishing with directional broadcast and I am adding a GOOD one for me (my cousins are gonna run the other two from their side of the lake). They've worked ok, occasional jams even with the small pellets. Been goin 2x/day for the last 2 summers. Nowhere near 5% body weight. Had good success but are recognizing we need to turn it up a notch.

Thanks again for any advice..

If you feed where the water comes into the lake, any nutrients that make it into the pond will stay in there longer before being flushed out vs. near the outflow.