Well it seems I may have bought 100 lbs of food too large for my fish to agressively eat. I went by the size they listed, which says 1/4" pellets, the stuff I was feeding was 3/16" and I thought, "they wouldn't notice bigger pellets." Well, I can tell you two things, I would like Purina to be my bankers, because they give you a very liberal 1/4", and the perch do seem to have noticed my switch.
Size wise these pellets are generally larger than 1/4", most are well over 5/16" when you actually measure them, like I did, with a set of dial calipers. I can randomly grab 5 pellets and they will all be better than .250 dia with most at .315 or more, 5/16" size. This is measured across the round edges as they were extruded, not the flats as they are cut off.
The fish seemed to have slowed up on their rate of consumption, by that I mean it used to sound like a babbling brook when I fed, now it sounds like an impending rain storm with a few advance droplets hitting the water first, and me wondering when the storm will hit.
The only good thing is, this is better food, so if they eat less, they will still be as healthy, but they were slamming the other stuff and the only thing that they could really have noticed is the size of it. These are 9-10"+ size fish, should they be able to handle these pellets with ease? Does anyone else feed 600 to yellow perch? Does anyone near Erie want to trade me some 5D05 for this stuff or buy the unopened bag?? I don't know if I should just keep feeding it and see, the snapping turtles work to clean up the stuff that sinks, I noticed them today working the bottom like salvage divers. I just recently discovered the joys of being a sugar daddy to my perch and I want them to get "Cecil Big" so I would listen to and appreciate all advice. Thanks.
