Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Optimal Bluegill fish food

I am performing two fish feeding trials using green sunfish (GSF) and yellow perch (YP) fed Aquamax and Optimal foods.

These are the results for feeding green sunfish(GSF) the Aquamax 600 and the Optimal Fish foods for the first six weeks of my feeding trial. Starting sizes for body length of GSF in both groups ranged from 2.625” to 3.25”. GSF were sourced from my pond using traps.

Twenty five GSF were placed into separate fish cages. Cage 1 fish were fed Aquamax and fish in Cage 2 were fed Optimal. Both fish foods were hydrated prior to feeding because some of the fish appeared to be too small to eat the dried pellets. Pellets were hydrated and chopped into smaller pieces prior to feeding. Fish in both cages were fed daily to the point of satiation.

At the end of six weeks all the GSF were sampled. The 23 GSF as a group (two died) eating Aquamax gained a total of 24.2495” (615.93mm) which converts to an average 0.970” (24.63mm) gain per fish.
The 25 GSF as a group eating Optimal gained a total of 32.74” (831.6mm) which converts to an average 1.423” (36.16mm) gain per fish. Not all fish gained equally in length.

After six weeks the GSF body lengths for the Aquamax group ranged from 3.0” to 4.75”. Body lengths for Optimal food were 2.75” to 5.06”.

At the end of six weeks half of the GSF from the Aquamax group were placed in a separate cage and are being fed Optimal. The other half of the GSF eating Aquamax are still being fed Aquamax. The plan of splitting the Aquamax fish into two groups was to see if the half now eating Optimum will out perform those still eating Aquamax. The caged GSF eating Optimal are still being fed Optimal.

My feed trial study will conclude when the water temperature drops to 60F around the first week of October.

The feed trial with YP has not been sampled. Preliminary results do not appear to be as good as those with GSF. More perch have died in the Optimal cage compared to the Aquamax cage. Matt Rayl says his nutritionists are saying the optimum diet for YP is different compared to sunfish. Supposedly yellow perch diet is more similar to salt water fish than the sunfish diet. Matt Rayl's fish food group consists of fish nutritionists and fish physiologists. The nutritionists develop the diets and the physiologists analyze the fish for overall health condition. I think since Optimal nutritionists have had good experience developing food for feeding recirculating aquaculture yellow perch, they will eventually produce a specialty food for YP and hybrid striped bass.