Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations How do I feed little ones?

as I have posted before, I thought I had a complete die off(due to low DO, too many fish, too hot, feeding too much). But it was not a complete die off, I caught in my turtle trap some 1/2-1&1/2 inch bluegill,hybrid,redear,green sunfish? I dont know what they were. I am pretty sure that is all that is left, no predator fish of any kind. So how do I feed/promote growth of these little ones? I have never done anything to this pond except stock/feed.

Thanks!

Use a good floating food, smaller is better. As a general rule of thumb, I try to have the individual pellets as small or smaller than their eye. My LMB in the pond, even tho they are 4+ pounds will eat both Purina LMB pellets and AM 600.

So I can pellet train them just like bigger fish? they are really small. Thanks for the info!

There are all sizes of Purina pellets - all the way from fry food (powder) to LMB pellets. I use AM 300 and 400 to train small fish and then go up in size. I mix 500 and 600 to serve all sizes of BG. Also use GFC which has about 5 different size pellets in one bag.

Where can I order some of this fish food?

thanks

I have an electric coffee grinder that I use to grind fish food pellets. I don't have any scientific evidence that it works. But, I've used the ground feed in my aquariums, cages, and aquaponics tanks with fry and small fingerlings. As the fish grow a little bigger, I mix in small cichlid pellets or trout pellets. Then I graduate to small pellets for ponds.

It seems to work.

For as fast as the fish grow, and the amount of fish you'll be feeding, I would go the coffee grinder route. The food will go bad before you use it all unless you have a LOT of little ones to feed.

I haven't tried it, but I suspect that coffee grounds made in the same grinder might taste a little funny.......

Fly,
You should be able to get any of those feeds that EWEST mentioned from any farm store or feed store that sells Purina products. They may have to order it for you.

We do similar to Catmandoo but use an old blender to grind up the AM500 into "near" powder. I don't think you could use a standard feeder but we hand-feed it when at the pond site.

fly, I also use a mixer/blender. I found a small Ninja on sale at Wally World, and it only takes a pulse or two. I store the pulsed food in a Tupperware bowl, and keep it close all the time.

I also use an anchored hula hoop to corral the floating food and have had good results. Small fish have teeny brains, but they seem to figure out very quickly where the buffet is.

I have been using a coffee bean grinder on corse setting with AM 500 pellets, then I sort the larger chunks from the smaller ones with a stainless steel strainer. It has worked well for feed training two size classes of RES from last years spawn. I have them in two different tanks, in one tank they are 3/4" to 1-1/2" and in the other tank I have 2" - 3"+. At this point I think I will end up with 70-80% of the six dozen RES that I have pellet trained.

I ordered some AM 300 and it has been working out great!

Two things about feeding small fish ground feed from the larger pellets 5D05 or 5D06:

1.) Small fish actually need more protein than the larger adult fish which is why the first three sizes are 50 percent protein vs. about 41 for the larger sizes.

2.) From my experience it's a royal pain in the *** to grind feed in any measurable amount with a coffee grinder. I burnt up a coffee grinder that way.

3.) My time is too valuable to sit there grinding feed over and over again in a grinder. I just buy the small feed, but you do have a good point Scot if a bag of the small feed is much more than you need. However I did have a rep at one of the Pond Boss conventions tell me it's good for a year as it has a vitamin C stabilizer. I've actually frozen it in zip lock bags too.

BTW next year I will be fertilizing my fry ponds with the fry powder. Incredible organic fertilizer!