Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Feeding question

Getting new fish that have been pellet trained to resume eating pellets in a new pond can be challenging for various reasons.

1. The new pond may have lots of natural foods thus the fish are finding adequate amounts of live foods. Sometimes the carrying capacity has to increase and natural foods in short supply before the fish resort to or resume eating pellets.

2.If you buy fish as pellet trained fingerlings, these fish have been eating pellets for a very short time thus the habituation to pellets is "weak". the smaller the fish the weaker the pellet eating tendency. "Weak" pellet eating fish easily or often 'go off feed' if natural foods are abundant in the new habitat / pond. Pellet eating does not resume with any fervor until the natural foods are depleted.


3. Hatchery fish eating pellets are fed in shallow sometimes small ponds often 3-5 ft deep. Providing pellets over water that is deeper results in fish not even knowing pellets are present if fish are in deep water 6-16ft deep.

4. New fish released into a fairly large pond have to locate the source of pellets. This can take time while the fish become accustomed to the new water body and if appropriate natural food is abundant in the pond why look for pellets?

5. It is important to feed pellets to fish at the same time they were fed pellets at the hatchery. Fish have a strong tendency to eat at certain times of day based on times of day they were trained and received pellets.

6. When putting new pellet trained smaller or fingerling fish into a new pond with no fish, I like to add either larger strongly habituated pellet eaters such as older BG or older pellet raised minnows/shiners to serve as teacher fish to lead the newly added shy fish to the pellet feeding area. Using teacher fish often has good results.

Sometimes it takes months for the new fish to resume eating pellets. Once the water temperature drops to 55F, I would stop feeding pellets to the fish if feeding response is only minimal.