Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Cheepest feed with best nutrition?

I have been feeding Aquamax 600 to my HSB and bluegill and its getting expensive. $75 a month. I want to start using something thats not so expensive, but has decent nutrition. Any idea what that would be?

Cargill nutition makes a feed called aqua feed and ive used it for the past few years with good results. It runs about 16.00 a bag. Im sure its not near as good as aquamax but its the only feed our local feed store carrys.

I Just started using Purina Game Fish Chow. 32% protien. It runs about 20.00 per 50LB bag. I don't know how much Aquamax 600 is but this stuff is not too terribly expensive.

I use 32 % Land of Lakes fish food and it runs about $13.50 per 50 # bag. The fish love the food and eat heavy. I feed about 3 bags a week. I hand feed at one end where I have a screen room over the water and it is nice to see the fish eating. I have 2 feeders which are Stren that I purchased from Greg Grimes. Greg is a very nice guy to do business with.

I believe Land of Lakes was purchased by Purina. If I am incorrect on this please set me straight. I think we are paying to much for fish food but we can not change the price as it is like the gasoline prices.

I believe Purina was bought out by Land O' Lakes. I might be wrong too.

Game Fish Chow last week here was $18.00 a bag which is about $1.50 more than last year. That is about 9% more than last year.

30% protein is good for BG but I would not go lower than that for HSB.

L-O-L bought Purina but I believe that they intend on keeping the brands separate. They have different supply chains I think.

I have used both brands (32%) and prefer GFC. For some reason the L-O-L was greasy/sticky and tended to clump and jam my 75-D feeders. But notice Deaner is using L-O-L from similar feeders with no problem.

I've been using Nutri-Source Farm Pond Diet from Tractor Supply for several years. It is 36% protein and 5% fat. It has gone from about $5.25/20 lbs. two years ago, to about $7.50/20 lbs. last year, and it is now $9.99 per 20 pound bag. It is a very hard 1/8-inch pellet. When thrown in the water it immediately creates an oil slick that brings in the fish -- yet it is not greasy in the bags or on the hands. It seems to float forever. Both big and small fish seem to like it.

Because of the price increase, I thought I'd try a different brand from the Southern States Co-op. It is called Big Strike and comes from Redmond, Washington. It is a 3/16-inch pellet with 32% protein and 4% fat. It was $15.50 for a 40 lb. bag.

So far, I'm kind of disappointed with it. About a third of the "floating" pellets sink within about a minute of hitting the water. It also doesn't put out an oil slick.

Last night and tonight I threw out equal rations of both. The fish seemed to eat both, but the Big Strike disappeared a lot quicker because it is bigger and because it sinks.

catman try the little strike 36% protein smaller pellet which I like for the bluegill. We are currently selling (things might change again next week) Aqaufeed and one thing I do like is the bag more water repellant than paper variety. We sell it for $18 and make a couple of bucks.

Greg,

Thanks for the info. The lady at Southern States talked me out of the Little Strike -- she said it was for fingerlings and fish under six inches. But, it sounds more like the feed I'm getting from TSC, but with higher protien and fat content. I think I'll buy a bag to mix with the Big Strike.

Again, thanks,
Ken

Completely agreed. Fish food, like gas, is one of the things in life that is expensive but unchangeable.