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Originally Posted By: John Fitzgerald
If you guys say CC pellets have little or no effect on BG growth, then I am going to cease feeding.

We can't keep CC over winter in this neighborhood as nocturnal otters get them.


John catfish pellets will most certainly help BG and are much better than nothing at all.
















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Post after post the last several years concerning problems with local suppliers. I was in the retail business for several years and if I had a customer that wanted a one-eyed donkey, I'd bust my butt to fill his order. Something just does not make sense because when I start feeding in the Spring, my feed store manager and I go to his office and he pulls out the Purina order sheet and we look at what is available to him THIS YEAR. My order goes on the sheet and the cycle begins. If I beat the deadline, it is on the next truck...if I'm late, the following week. Sometimes the warehouse has supply problems with slow-moving items but I keep a stash in case that happens. Nothing that my supplier can do about that. I'm not a big account...just a customer! As I said...something about this just does not make sense.

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Fish feed is a pretty small industry compared to other feeds. The demand just isn’t there when compared to livestock and chickens. But, there are some good ones. I like Optimax, Al Hall uses Cargill and Lusk uses Purina. I’ve fished their places and all of us raise huge bluegills. I wouldn’t hesitate to use any of them.

I’ve never had good results from TSC feed but figure it’s better than nothing.


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Fortunately for me one local Purena dealer decided to stock Aquamax MVP. So now I can go up to the store and get what I need any time I need it. As long as they are willing to do that I want to patronize them. Plus the AM MVP at $42 a 50# bag is just more competitive priced than having feed shipped through the UPS. They also have bags of Game Chow and Catfish Chow but I do not use either of those (unless I have to).

I also feed a fair amount of Optimal but the AM MVP is definitely my core feed program. What I like about the Optimal is I can order small amounts and have it on my doorstep. If I order anything a little weird from Purena, like starter or AM400 or some other feed that no one else uses in the area, I might get it, might not, might be a month later. It is so unpredictable. So right now I have some Optimal Starter 4 I am feeding the recent YOY BG along the shore line, some BG - BG JR - Bass that I mix up and feed my SMB/RES pond with and some Optimal Hand Toss I try to entice my LMB but the biggest HBG and CC end up eating 99%. So the Optimal is very handy to get small orders of anything out of the ordinary that any local feed dealer would be crazy to try and stock (because most of it probably would sit and rot on their shelves).

So in the end I feed probably 75% Purena and 25% Optimal.


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For 3 yrs I bought Cargills and had it shipped directly to the farm. I usually bought around 40 sks at a time of mixed size's. I had problems with mice, they loved that stuff. But a few months back I made a deal with my seed and feed store guy, where he stocks Aquamax lmb and MVP for me. I no longer have mice problems. And snrub I pay $42 plus change for the MVP also. $44 plus some change for the LMB food. I have purchased Optimal once in the past but from now on I will just stay with the Purina as long as it's easy to get.

Last edited by TGW1; 09/21/18 07:23 AM.

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I feed MVP and have tried some Aquamax LMB that I get from the local feed store. ($42/ 50lb bag.) I am their only Aquamax customer.

The Cargill rep stopped by and saw the Aquamax. He dropped off a free Triton Aquafeed 4512 for me to try. It has good numbers. Lots of protein (45%) etc. The protein comes from "animal protein products, plant protein products". Not sure what that means. Chicken feathers?

Well I'll give it a shot and see what the fish think. No idea on the price difference.

Anybody use this? I feed LMB and CNBG. I'm sure the CNBG will be fine with it, more concerned with the LMB.

On a humorous note. The tag says "This feed is designed to be fed fish." So I guess I'm supposed to feed fish to the bag of feed?


4 acre pond 32 ft deep within East Texas (Livingston) timber ranch. Filled (to the top of an almost finished dam) by Hurricane Harvey 9/17. Stocked with FHM, CNBG, RES 10/17. Added 35lbs RSC 3/18. 400 N LMB fingerlings 6/18
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Couldn't find any info at the Cargill site, (ughhh guys - time to put a little effort into your web site dudes!) but our friends at Overton sell Cargill. It seems that the last two digits are the pellet size. 12 means 1/8 inch (.125) pellets.

They recommend Cargill for LMB and I figure they know what they are doing. (My fish are all from Overton.) So I'll try some with the MVP and see how it goes.

Last edited by Vortex 4; 04/11/19 04:30 PM.

4 acre pond 32 ft deep within East Texas (Livingston) timber ranch. Filled (to the top of an almost finished dam) by Hurricane Harvey 9/17. Stocked with FHM, CNBG, RES 10/17. Added 35lbs RSC 3/18. 400 N LMB fingerlings 6/18
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Hopefully these open correctly. They're converted from pdf to jpg.

Attached Images
Carnivorous_R9.jpg Carnivorous_R92.jpg

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Opened fine. Thanks. Do you feed these?


4 acre pond 32 ft deep within East Texas (Livingston) timber ranch. Filled (to the top of an almost finished dam) by Hurricane Harvey 9/17. Stocked with FHM, CNBG, RES 10/17. Added 35lbs RSC 3/18. 400 N LMB fingerlings 6/18
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Originally Posted By: Vortex 4
I feed MVP and have tried some Aquamax LMB that I get from the local feed store. ($42/ 50lb bag.) I am their only Aquamax customer.

The Cargill rep stopped by and saw the Aquamax. He dropped off a free Triton Aquafeed 4512 for me to try. It has good numbers. Lots of protein (45%) etc. The protein comes from "animal protein products, plant protein products". Not sure what that means. Chicken feathers?

Well I'll give it a shot and see what the fish think. No idea on the price difference.

Anybody use this? I feed LMB and CNBG. I'm sure the CNBG will be fine with it, more concerned with the LMB.

On a humorous note. The tag says "This feed is designed to be fed fish." So I guess I'm supposed to feed fish to the bag of feed?


Vortex I feed the 4512 at my pond and they eat it up faster than I can get it to them . Had used other feed and they were not doing well on it (thin) within several weeks after switching to 4512 their body conditions was much improved. Have not fed it to LMB on purpose cause I don’t have any feed trained LMB other than a few that trained themselves

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Think the “12” is the fat

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Originally Posted By: Vortex 4
Opened fine. Thanks. Do you feed these?

Yes, it's the primary brand I feed my fish. I feed from 2.2 Aquaxcel to 9.5mm Triton. I also hand feed either Optimal Hand Throw or Purina LMB food to my HSB. I use more of the Purina because it floats longer than the Optimal, and gives me a better idea of how much to feed daily. Once the pellets sink, I can't gauge how much the HSB are eating.

Originally Posted By: Vortex 4
...The Cargill rep stopped by and saw the Aquamax. He dropped off a free Triton Aquafeed 4512 for me to try. It has good numbers. Lots of protein (45%) etc. The protein comes from "animal protein products, plant protein products". Not sure what that means. Chicken feathers?...

I don't think the animal protein, which is the primary ingredient in both Optimal and Cargill, is chicken. After fish meal, Purina lists their second ingredient as "poultry by-product meal", so I assume animal and chicken products are listed separately.

Last edited by FireIsHot; 04/11/19 03:03 PM.

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Opened the bag and tossed some in. Both the CNBG and LMB don't show an obvious preference to either the Cargill or Purina. They hit both aggressively.

I'll have my feedstore check the price. I lean towards the Purina as they list the protein sources, and the first is fish meal. If the Cargill is significantly cheaper I'll use it for the gills and Aquamax LMB for the bass.

I'm lucky I have a good feed store that goes out of their way to get what I need.

Last edited by Vortex 4; 04/11/19 04:29 PM.

4 acre pond 32 ft deep within East Texas (Livingston) timber ranch. Filled (to the top of an almost finished dam) by Hurricane Harvey 9/17. Stocked with FHM, CNBG, RES 10/17. Added 35lbs RSC 3/18. 400 N LMB fingerlings 6/18
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You are lucky to have a feed store that has stuff. We have long dated feed from TS and it doesn’t do much for their growth. It’s cheap. Overtons sells it ( 4512) for 39$ a bag. Works for me

Last edited by Pat Williamson; 04/11/19 06:14 PM.
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I used to feed Purina but my local co-op is terrible about ordering, they only get one Purina order a month and it seems I always missed their order date, they couldn't tell me a calendar day they order each month, and it just got to be a hassle, not to mention $57 a bag for 50 pound of grower 600.

I fed TSC multi species exclusively for a year and definitely did notice a decrease in overall fish health, mainly less meat on average when I would harvest. I really liked the multiple pellet size, but they protein level is a bit low for YP and it kinda smelled like cat food to me.


I feed Mellick Aqua feed 40/10, 7.5 mm floating pellets to my YP now and they grow well on it. I can buy Mellick brand feed cheaper than Purina, a dozen bags of Purina will cost me over $600 and I can get the same amount from Mellick shipped here for around $425 and that includes the freight. I am also able to support a business in my own state, which I like.

http://www.melickaquafeed.com/index.html

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