Very much new to this forum, love any help I can get. Same issue really, I found out a few things about AQ in my area ( deep in the Ozarks of MO ) 1. They appear to price it as if they were selling off their mothers jewelry, and 2, the order takes so long to come in that based on my 60 years of age, calculates out to about 10 more bags I can get delivered before I croak!!
I mis read that last article in PB and ordered 2 bags of 600, since I already have many fairly large BG and HB, and after over a month of waiting, the first 2 bags came in yesterday. I already had a second feeder set up, first one is full of floating catfish food which everything in the pond has been eating for the last few years like it was their last meal, The six 30# + GP I have clean every single pellet that is not caught by everything else, something I did not know they eat.
I never should have bought any GP 6 years ago, neither pond has any aquatic life to speak of and their never is ( or was before I put them in ) any kind of algae problems. After I realized my mistake, I assumed they would starve to death, instead, any guests we have that look out over the pond and happen to see one or more sunning near the surface run in screaming that we have alligators in the pond!! How they got so huge, so fast, in fairly small ponds, back when I wasn't even feeding, in a place with any apparent food source for them in beyond me. But they have sure learned to adapt and are the single most efficient fish I have in the pond for cleaning up all the floating food, although watching them trying to eat it is both comical and elegant.
I ( incorrectly, failed to read again ) assumed that the 600 would be just a tad bigger than the 500, and still smaller than the CF food, but when I opened the bag this morning and loaded the feeder, I was surprised to see the pellets were actually half again larger than the pellets I have been using. Unfortunately, the massive rains our part of the country got last month caused both my ponds, which are connected together, to overflow twice ( yea, I know, very poorly built, that is another topic, my fault again, broken back put me on disability at age 49 and shut down my income) and I lost thousands of small fish, both times. I picked up a few handfuls and they appeared to be just about everything!! I guess it was part of my spring hatch.
At any rate, for what it is worth, my feeder flung out the feed like it was a fastball from the pros, and even though it was just a 1 second test, many BG of all sizes gave it a shot, and did exactly what others have seen, pecked at it till their heads hurt!! I saw many a pellet drug down by a fish the size of my finger, only to float back up a few seconds latter. Nothing wasted though, did not take long for 6 huge slow, shadows to show up slowly and cleanly plucking them up one at a time. I pre paid for 6 more bags of 600 before I saw the size of the pellet, I wish I had waited and had 500, I know many of my small BG, the exact fish I am trying to beef up, simply cannot access the food yet. But, I am very impressed how quickly my otherwise finicky fish ( for that time of the day ) were willing to immediately attack the AQ, something they will not do for the standard food I have been feeding them for years.
Sorry if I used the wrong abbreviations, I read them but I have the memory of a 3 striped Asian garden snail, courtesy of the pain medicine they have in this pain pump buried in my side. I need help with my ponds, and I will try to post in the appropriate places, Sorry I took so much space!!
Last edited by catbird84; 06/20/11 08:18 AM.
