Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Fish Pellet Composition

I sent a PM to a member with this question and then realized somebody else might be interested as well.

My question was... For the pellets I buy, the first two items on the label are "not less than 45% protein" and "not less than 17% lipids." The "not less than" part makes me believe that the higher percent protein and lipids, the better. Is that true?

What about air in the pellets? (Oh Cecil and Bill!!!)

It all depends on what the proteins are made from. For instance, fish meal is more digestible than chicken feathers, but they are both "protein".

Troublemaker!

All you need to know is Bill is wrong and I am right l

Calm down men!

I am really more curious about the lipid number. Most of the previous posts talk about protein level, not so much lipid level.

.......The pellets I have are fish meal based by the way....they were out of the chicken feather ones!

One reason I am asking the question is I keep reading in posts about high WR numbers. It seems most folks think the higher the better. I wonder if there isn't an optimum range for WR and when you exceed it your fish are obese and can develop health issues associated with obesity as seen with other species like cats, dogs or humans.

I also read a lot that feeding fish pellets allows fish to have a nutritious meal without expending much energy. Don't fish need exercise too? Is it possible that fish that depend predominately on pellets for food are out of shape and not as healthy as fish that eat natural forage with only enough pellets to supplement their diet?

BillD. says "I also read a lot that feeding fish pellets allows fish to have a nutritious meal without expending much energy. Don't fish need exercise too? Is it possible that fish that depend predominately on pellets for food are out of shape and not as healthy as fish that eat natural forage with only enough pellets to supplement their diet?"

Good points and observations. Current fish foods have been developed primarily to grow fish to a harvestable size ASAP and economically. We are thinking that a long term diet of these current fish foods are shortening the life span of the fishes especially when these fishes are overly obese. A similar physiology and health condition happens in humans.

Now the next 'frontier' for fish food manufacturers is to develop a fish food diet that is more healthy for growing trophy sport fish with longer life spans.

Examples of overfed, overweight fish. In the first link CecilB expresses concern that these 4 year old fish may not live to be 5 yrs old. Normal life span of brook trout is usually around 9 to sometimes 15 years. Note these brook trout are over weight males not females full of eggs.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=30443&Number=389386#Post389386
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=389629&page=1

Thanks Bill. This leads me to my next question and that is about overall physical strength and agility.

In this issue of PBM there is an article discussing the inability of pellet raised LMB to compete when intoduced into an environment where there are wild raised fish in competition. The conclusion seems to be that the pellet raised LMB do not know how to catch minnows or even maybe recognize a minnow as food.

Could an additional factor be that the pellet raised fish have not developed the strength and speed required to catch minnows effectively as their meals were always easy catch pellets? I am wondering whether the wild raised are not only more savy at catching a minnow, but also stronger and faster than their pellet raised counterparts.

""Could an additional factor be that the pellet raised fish have not developed the strength and speed required to catch minnows effectively as their meals were always easy catch pellets? I am wondering whether the wild raised are not only more savy at catching a minnow, but also stronger and faster than their pellet raised counterparts.""

Very good discussion and practical points about wild versus tame hand or pellet raised fish. Similar behaviors are seen in wild vs farm raised game birds such as pheasants and quail. The behavior no doubt extends across numerous species including humans as in workers vs welfare persons.

Guess I can answer my own question on whether high lipid % is good. The answer is ..."it depends!" All a matter of what you are trying to accomplish with your feeding program. You trying to grow big and fat fish ASAP or just trying to get good growth but perhaps healthier fish.

Bill D; I think that is a correct statement. I also think it all depends on how much you feed your fish. Remember, you can supplementally feed the fish so they don't get all of their food from pellets (i.e. have to chase fish to eat) or you can feed more and make "couch potatos".

If you have LMB and BG in a pond, and want to grow large BG, you might have a hard time keeping the LMB from eating the BG food. (My LMB like eating the AM600 that I feed) But, if you want to grow large LMB and not have a lot of food going to the BG, you can feed Purina LMB pellets, which are too big for a BG to eat whole - they have to peck away at it to eat it.

That is exactly the conclusion my newbie mind had wandered too! I am going to do the supplemental approach. We get the fun of watching the fish feed and the fish get a nutritious snack. Once a day I will throw the small 3.5 mm 45% pellets to the BG & PS and the larger 32% grain based pellets to the CC as my first attempt at a feeding program. I am hoping the 3.5 mm pellets are too small for anybody but the SF to go after and the larger grain based will appeal mostly to the CC.

About 10 years ago, I spoke to an owner of several large West Texas ponds. He was raising HSB and feeding them food from a well known North Texas Milling Co. They cost about 50% of Purina, Cargill etc. and were fairly high protein. He said his fish were eating them and doing well. I did not ask him how well.

I called Purina and discussed it with the guy who developed the fish feeds. I had met him on several occasions but won't mention his name. He told me that he couldn't buy the ingredients that he used(Menhaden) for that price. He also said that he couldn't even buy the grain based ingredients for that $.

I suspect that most of the less expensive feed is chicken feather based. I have read that the poultry industry has, for years, tried to find more uses for the copious amounts of feathers that they wind up with.

There are an awful lot of less expensive fish feeds at farm/feed stores that I have decided to stay away from.

Disclaimer: I am not a fish nutritionist.

The label on the pellets I use lists the ingredients. Starts with fish meal, soy meal......

Don't all pellet brands have to list their ingredients on their labels? Wouldn't you know if you are buying feather protein?

I think someone from Purina told me feather protein is fish digestible if the feathers are 'processed' correctly.

Lipids (fats) are high-energy nutrients that can be utilized to partially spare (substitute for) protein in aquaculture feeds. Lipids supply about twice the energy as proteins and carbohydrates. Lipids typically comprise about 15% of fish diets, supply essential fatty acids (EFA) and serve as transporters for fat-soluble vitamins.

A recent trend in fish feeds is to use higher levels of lipids in the diet. Although increasing dietary lipids can help reduce the high costs of diets by partially sparing protein in the feed, problems such as excessive fat deposition in the liver can decrease the health and market quality of fish.

From http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/420/420-256/420-256.html

US National Research Council: "Nutrition Requirements of Coldwater Fishes" concludes 10-20% lipids for cold water fishes.

This one is very interesting:
http://www.iffo.net/es/system/files/TB25%20Fish%20Oil%20Salmon.PDF

It goes through a summary of several studies and concludes that optimal lipids varies with species. It makes a difference on source of lipids, especially fish oil (typ menhaden) vs vegetable (corn/soy/etc). Redfish (channel bass) fed a diet whose lipids were mostly from menahaden did best at 7.4-11.2%. For catfish and tilapia, they cite 10% being optimal.

I do recall reading an article a while ago that lipid requirements vary with age as well. We know folks typically run a special feed for fry and young.

So it would seem that "more is better" is not accurate. There would be some upper limits.

Centrarchid Fishes: Diversity, Biology, and Conservation by Cooke & Philipp says for juvenile LMB, a diet of 7-13% lipid is sufficient for grown in a diet of 40% protein. Lepomis suggested best at 16% lipid. Interestingly, they cite Hoagland who says that in a closed system with no other food sources, Lepomis got best growth with 44% protein and 8% lipid.

Interesting. This suggests to me that when natural forage is available for Lepomis, it is naturally relatively low in lipids so a higer 16% lipids in the supplemental feeding of pellets balances the diet to around 8% overall.

But then again the circle comes back to what is "best growth?" They do not define what parameters they are using to rate/measure growth. Big and fat ASAP?

I read that hydrolyzed poultry feathers is an ingredient in Purina AquaMax pellets which allows them to keep cost down. I don't know that for a fact as I have never read one of their labels.

Couple of pages for ya.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=304252&page=all

Thanks Esshup. I found a picture of a label in the thread. Not sure what "Poultry by-product meal" means. Could be just about anything left over after they take the good parts, right?

Chicken feathers plus other stuff.

As I see no nutritional advantage to changing, I think I will continue using Silver Cup Hi-Pro. I have not compared cost, but I don't consider cost a big issue as my pond is small and I will only be using pellets to supplement the natural forage.

I see discussions in other threads regarding pros and cons of floating vs sinking pellets. Sounds like throwing a mix of the two might be good. Somebody please fill me in on how to tell whether the pellets I am considering buying are floating or sinking. Does it typically say on the label? Also, I assume one difference is just how much air is entrapped in the pellet. Do most pellet manufactures make both floating and sinking pellets with equivalent nutritional values?

And yes, I know, I can throw some in water and see whether they float or sink! But I am betting the folks at the store will frown on me cutting into a bag on the shelf with my pocket knife to get a sample for test purposes!

I only feed floating. Some will get waterlogged and sink.

I don't know about Silver Cup, but on the Purina website, it tells you whether the feed is floating or sinking according to what feed it is.

Doesn't Keystone know?

Silvercup is not longer made by the Nelsons. It's owned by Skretting now.
http://www.skretting.us/Internet/SkrettingUSA/webinternet.nsf/wprId/2607D87D2C89FADBC1257999003AA253!OpenDocument
Here's a web page with feeds you're likely choosing from. They offer both sinking and floating. All different names for the different feeds than we've gotten used to.
http://www.skretting.us/internet/SkrettingUSA/webinternet.nsf/wprid/C377F4B9D0D7A7E388257CD3007037DD/$file/SkrettingUSA%20Warm%20&%20Cool%20water%20Diets%202014%20for%20website.pdf