Pond Boss Forums AERATION Should I aerate? when to stop feeding

Can anyone tell me when I should stop feeding for the winter?

The answer often depends on the species of fish that are eating pellets. For most warm water fish they noticably slow down in the amount of pellets they eat each day when the water temperature drops to and stabilizes at 60F. Lesser feeding of these fish will continue until thewater drops to 50F. Then many species including cool water fish usually will not feed at all at the surface on pellets. Sometimes a few warmwater fish in more southern states will have very limited feeding on a few pellets in cooler weather during winter when water temps are around 48-54F on a nice sunny day or evening. Trout will actively feed at the surface when water temps are 40-45F.

Also pellet feeding fish at around 60-65F seem to be more strongly negatively influenced at feeding on pellets when water temperatures are dropping compared to when temperatures are rising.

Bill:

If a person was to stock trout in their pond for the winter, and fed them in the open water that was created by the diffuser, would that have any negetative impact on the warm water species that were in the pond?

thanks, that was helpful. Hopefully, someday I'll know enough to be helpful to someone else.

Keep learning and enjoy the pond - soon enough you will be answering questions. We all started at the same place with no knowledge.

The feeding of trout in open water created by a diffuser in a frozen pond during thick ice cover (6"-24") would impact the other warm water fish depending on several variables. IMO least impact on the other fish would be if the diffuser was placed in 5-7ft of water. Trout would quickly learn WHEN and WHERE to feed and pond would not receive continuous complete turnovers.

Bill:

Correct. The diffuser would be placed at 1/3 the total water depth of the pond (i.e. 15' max depth, diffuser would be suspended at 5' depth in 10' of water). The diffuser would be close enough to shore so that at one spot it was thawed all the way to the shore. It worked 2 years ago, and the only visible impact was a goodly winter FA bloom. I was wondering if there were other things that I needed to be aware of.

[img]http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y182/esshup/pond%202009/?action=view&current=100_1102.mp4[/img]

Stop feeding when there is ice on the pond (-: My bluegill will eat some if there is a warm day or a string of warm days. Depends on your weather but if they come up and eat, I give them some. It did not seem to hurt anything, been doing it for 6 yrs. Unless there is ice on my pond I dont go a week with giving them some, if i go that long there waiting for it. Any catfish quit on there own but the bluegills eat. odviously not as much and dont let feed be left over to float around, and dont feed in the winter on windy days, they dont chase it down good. calm warm sunny days they will slowly come up grab one and go down, with each warm day they get faster... hehe