Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding What size pellets to feed

My new 2 acre pond has only fhm and cnbg and a few res. Have been feeding Cargill 1/8 inch floating pellets since February when it was stocked with mostly one inch fish, Most of those fish are 4 inch or better now. My largest fish I stocked at 3 inches. Most of those are 6-61/2 inch now. I am going to Overtons Saturday to buy a TH feeder and purchase more feed. My question is how large should the cnbg be before I step up the size of the pellets? I have no predator fish now and will only stock a few cblmb fingerlings next spring. Should I just keep everybody feeding on the 1/8 size for now? I know some of you mix your sizes but are my fish big enough to worry about that now? It is a several hour drive for me to pick up the feed and don't want to make any unesasary trips.

James,
The next size of Cargill 4512 up from 1/8" is 1/4" pellets. I've been mixing from the beginning of my feeding regimen late last summer. At first, the 1/4" pellets would float and soften up, so everything from CNBG to FHM to Gambusia's to golden shiners to an occasional turtle could eat it. The bait will push the bigger stuff around until it softened up. The biggest CNBG I've caught was 7 1/4", with an average of a li'l smaller. I'm sure one of the pro's will have some statistics on mouth gape with regards to length, but I'm going to continue to mix the feed 50/50 because of now larger CNBG, CC's and BC's seem to gravitate towards the larger pellets, while this year's spawn (YOY) and baitfish tend to gravitate towards the smaller pellets. In the end, all the feed is consumed in about 2-3 min anyway. I try not to concentrate too much on details like that...but, that's just me. It made sense to me to mix the pellet sizes. It seems to be working as the pellets are consumed and the fish continue to grow.
Good luck,
Charlie

Mixing is a good idea. GFC comes in mixed sizes. One option is to vary the % of mix based on your conditions. Lots of small fish use high % small pellets. They will get eaten as noted above. One thing to watch is how the feeder disburses the feed. Some feeders will partially un-mix the sizes and throw out most of the small stuff first as it falls through the hopper first.

Per Eric pb article ideal size is 25-50% gape of fish

I have been told a rule of thumb and quick and easy one is feed the size feed equal to the fishes eyes.

Cheers Don.

Donno, that's what I go by, especially in BG/YP ponds. Fish with larger gape sizes can handle larger pellets, but I go by the eyeball size for the forage fish in the pond.

See the latest PB mag- July/Aug 2015 for some interesting info on pellets, size and composition and growth.

I would if I could. Still haven't received mine.

Flame, I have had Overton's ship my feed to me because of the 6 hr roundtrip drive. I think I have come up with the correct feeding amount and time on the larger TH feeder. And it looks like the shipment cost added around $3.00 per sack to my feeding cost. You might want to look into home delivery. it might not be what you are looking for but I seam to be able to justify it in my mind, But of course, my mind is small after the experimentation I went through in the 60's and 70's.

Tracy

Wait a minute...I went thru the 60's and 70's I think. Didn't I?? Oh well, They say if you remember the 60's you probably weren't there. I'm just sayin...