@pinetar - Interesting about multiple feedings per day. LMB are definitely grazing eaters. I've read that they take 18 hours to digest, but pellets don't have bones and I postulate they don't take as much time to digest as natural feed (most of the papers I read were based on wild LMB not farmed feeder trained). What were your thoughts on that, is that why you do so many feeding per day?
You have 7 feedings, what is your times or rough feed amounts?
Are you going to collapse those feed times as day light times compress?
Do you measure water temperature?
You have longer feed seasons in Alabama, when does your water/ feeding slow down? If at all?
How many feeders do you have? Do you feed at multiple spots?
What size brand do you have?
I feed 4 times per day (your 7 is interesting).
I use a Aqua Pro 25DF and currently using AM 500 will be switching to 600 next 50lb bag, which should be around roughly August 16th.
7:30am 50 secs
11am 15 secs
2pm 15 secs
4:30pm 30 secs
This is currently about 22-25 lbs per week.
I'm increasing the feed times by 3% per day or roughly 20% per week. Ultimately, by the end of August, I'll start lowering the feed increase down as the metabolic rate decreases, also I'll move my last and first feedings as I don't want them feeding too late in the evenings.
I've got a spreadsheet and day by day growth chart that I'm attempting to follow their growth to see how closely it fits the stories and papers that I've read.
I do dusk feed checks for like a 5-10 sec burst. The fish feed like mad, it's gone in seconds except the stuff close to the dock, they get that later after I leave.
2 questions I have related to this:
For the Aqua Pro DX Is there a formula for the amount of feed dispersed per second of operation? (Ultimately I could spend an evening exercising my 7th grade algebra prowess, but I'm looking for either the AquaPro folks to provide something or some other smart guy to have done the work for me.)
Does anyone else do formula based managed feeding?
I've got to do is get the formulas based on water temperatures for my region then dial it in with real data and tune the chart in over multiple harvest terms.
Everyone is telling me hand feeding is the way to go, but I can't afford to do this as I'm still a working man trying to pay bills at a "real" job.
Great thread, I was just getting to post this one.
Again, Pondboss forums rule.
Ken
Ken... My feeding times are what was recommended to me by the biologist that is helping me manage the pond. I posted my feeding times above earlier in this thread. I have two Texas Hunter Feeders and yes I feed over two heavy cover / structure areas. The model I have is DF125 90 lbs. sinking fish feed or 70 lbs. floating fish pellets)
I am feeding approx 100 pounds combined from both feeders every 10 days. I am shocked at the feed time on your feeders... My duration is set at 2 - 3 seconds per feed. If you are familiar with Texas Hunter Feeders the feed is blown out by a fan... maybe its a different kind of feeder thus the difference in my feeding times versus yours.
Yes I check water temp on a weekly basis and chart it, along with ph and I log most of the LMB we catch and any remarkable bream. The feeding slowed down last year in early November and I stopped feeding totally the second week of November.
BTW... two remarkable bream my 9 year old son caught this weekend... A 1 pound 1 ounce CNBG.. and a 1 pound 4 ounce RESF. These are double the size of anything we had caught previously. Pretty exciting stuff!! Had a great time digging for worms out behind the pump house... we "caught" 25 worms and caught 21 various Bream.. more importantly spent a quality couple of hours with one of my children!!!
