Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Water temperature - feeding HSB

At what temperature should the pond water (surface) be before I turn on the feeder for HSB?
Today the top one ft. water temp. was 46 F.

I have searched this forum high and low and could not find discussion on the topic. Of course my search abilities are very limited.

Thanks fellow pondmeisters,

ed

54 degrees F.

You can hand feed a little beforehand if you wish, but do it early in the day.

I'll look for the link...

If you give the definitive answer, Bruce, it doesn't count as thread killing.

Thanks Bruce!
I'm probably 2 weeks away?

Ed

10:00 am this morning - near srface water temp 46.6 degrees.
HSB moderate feeding activity.
May be what Bruce calls mainemnance?

N.E. Texas

This has prompted me to go back and check the literature. All suggestions point to cessation of feeding for HSB at or around 54 degrees. I think I've figured it out.

I believe that if you are in an aquaculture setting, that 54 degrees is the temperature at which you are not guaranteed a feeding. This makes a lot of sense because if you are feeding ten thousand HSB in a little pond and you feed even once or twice with the food all going to waste you are risking a fish kill. I think that ideally automatic feeders would be turned off around 54 degrees, with hand feedings possible down into the mid-forties prn.

I'm glad George brought this to our attention because I think I had a significant misunderstanding of what the literature was trying to tell me.

See this link for the info.

http://www.pondboss.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t=003602

Bruce, we turned off the feeders about 10 days ago when the low air temps were in the teens -
don't know about the water temp.

With the warm-up early this week into the 60 -70 range, we turned on the feeders.

Warm weather forecast for today, and needing to go to our ponds (80 miles away)for feeder maintenace, I had a chance to check out feeding and water temps.

Air temp 65 degrees @ 11:00 a.m

Near surface water temp 50.2 degrees (Very likely warmer in deeper water)

Very active HSB feeding
A few large CNBG feeding.

N.E. Texas

Having documented an analogy between HSB and their WBxSB parentage, I am now more comfortable in conclusions I have previously believed to be true.

Active HSB feeding that I have observed at 50 degrees is on a WARMING trend from the mid 40 degree range, warming to +/- 50 degrees, whereas little or no feeding activity documented by the literature, supported by Todd Overton and Bruce Condello, is a COOLING trend from the mid fifties to 50 +/- degrees.

Its growth/metabolism related. From the other post.

http://www.pondboss.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t=003602


I did some checking. HSB growth in cool water starts (like most warmwater fish) at a point a few degrees higher than when their eating starts to increase. HSB growth slows in fall and starts to increase in spring at 55F+- . That would indicate that solid feeding to support growth would continue down to 50F+- and some feeding to support equilibrium status (maintenance) below that would continue. I have left out the upper (warmer) temps on growth and feeding as they are not applicable to this thread. IIRC this is a few degrees colder than LMB ( 60F growth and 55F feeding for growth). This is of course subject to local genetic conditioning.

What a differnce a year makes.
Last year our winter was unusally mild and feeders were on all year except during the hottest summer temps for 2-3 weeks.

This winter has been more normal and feeders were turned off a couple of weeks ago.
Yesterday air temp was 62 degrees and water 44 - so if warming period continues will turn feeders back on soon, but with another blast of arctic air forecast for this weekend, will wait and see what the long range forecast predicts.
Come on spring...

N.E. Texas