Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Optimal Bluegill fish food

First of all, if Purina hadn't screwed things up in their supply chain earlier this year, this probably would have never come about. I couldn't get Aquamax just like a majority of other people, and I was looking for an alternative. Matt Rayl of American Pond and Lake Management in Russiaville, In. and I have been working together on a number of things this year, and he told me about this new food. I had to bug him for about 2 months before I even got some.

I use my personal pond as a test bed for different things. After all, if I screw up and kill fish, I won�t have an irate customer to deal with; I will only be kicking myself in the butt for screwing up.

I've heard a lot of things said about the food, and for me, it required a paradigm shift in my thinking. There are many different facets that go into pond fish food that we don't even think about, and some of those were made very apparent to me the first time I fed the fish in my pond the food.

Some of the things that I was told are:
1) Food composition can be tweaked by the ingredients to make fish more resistant to high stress events that might kill them, like low Oxygen levels in ponds. These things don�t have to be listed on the label.
2) Pellet size and even shape will have an effect on how fish feed on them.
3) Better quality food will mean better water quality.
4) Fish food can be specifically tailored for a fish species � it�s not a �one food feeds all fish the best� scenario. �You wouldn�t feed your dog a steady diet of cat food, would you?�

Well, without going into a lot of detail about those 4 points, #1 and #2 are definitely true in my observation.

I witnessed a fishkill due to an oxygen crash in a pond where different foods were being tested on fish in cages. Fish in cages that were fed the Optimal food had approximately (by my observations) 70% less mortality than fish in the other cages.

The fish in my pond wouldn't even look at the Optimal food for 3 days, started pecking at it slowly, then started eating it like the AM600 that I was feeding previously. A month later when I got a bag of AM600, they would swim past it to eat the Optimal food. As far as I can tell, that was strictly due to pellet shape and size. Fish get conditioned to a certain size of pellet as Sprkplug can attest to. I have 5-6 pound LMB that won't touch AM Largemouth pellets, again due to pellet size and conditioning, but they eat all the AM600 that they could get. They are now eating the Optimal food too...

So, it�s off to the races with the new food.
I've been running the feed test in fish cages in my pond, in addition to feeding the fish in my pond the food. The test was the new Optimal Bluegill fish food vs. Aquamax 500 vs. Sportsman�s Choice Trophy Fish Food (made by Cargill) that is available from Tractor Supply. I really, really wish that I could have gotten some of the Cargill food that y'all in Texas are feeding, and I would have run that in the test as well.
The results are pretty amazing, and I will have pictures and information for everyone shortly. I know Bruce is doing some testing as well, and I would hope that he chimes in here too, as the results that he is getting are even more apparent than mine.





Here's the test:
3 fish cages each 2� x 4� x 4� deep.
Hybrid Bluegills are the fish in the cages. Starting size was 9.5#/1000 or 0.152 oz. per fish average weight.
Matt brought over a bunch of fish; they were divided equally between all three cages.
Each cage has a feed ring to contain the floating food. Cage material is 3/16� square plastic mesh. Each cage has a net on top to prevent predation by Blue Herons.
Fish are fed once per day at 6 pm. Test was performed starting on July 8th 2015. This fish sample was collected on Sept 8, 2015. There were two days during the test where the fish were not fed in the evening due to time constraints.
This sample was collected by running the dip net through the cage, and taking an average representative sample of 10 fish from the 100 or so fish that were in the dip net. The rest of the fish in the dip net were returned to the cage.
Fish in cage 1 were fed Sportsman�s Choice Trophy Fish Food mfg. by Cargill and sold in Tractor Supply Stores
Fish in cage 2 were fed Purina Aquamax Sportfish 500 and was purchased from the local feed store
Fish in cage 3 were fed Optimal Bluegill fish food from the calibration run of feed
Each cage was fed the same amount of food by weight every day. The amount of food fed to each cage was not changed from start of the test to September 8th. The amount of food that each cage was fed was 4 ounces per day.
Fish in cage 1 average length was 2 �� and weighed an average of 0.097 oz. per fish.
Fish in cage 2 average length was 3 1/8� and weighed an average of 0.297 oz. per fish.
Fish in cage 3 average length was 4 3/16� and weighed an average of 0.802 oz. per fish.
Fish mortality in the cages was about the same, i.e. approximately 3-6 fish per cage per week. There was no apparent cause of the mortality, and each cage saw approximately the same mortality rate.

All I know is that I'm sold on the Optimal Bluegill food.

I didn't feed the fish to optimize growth, I fed the fish like I feed the fish in my pond, a "supplemental" amount of food. I only fed once per day because that's all I had time for, and it was a chore to make sure I was home to feed them. On the days that I knew I would be gone, I had the neighbor feed them.

The official "launch" of the food will be next year. The shipping/supply bugs are being worked out now, but there is some food available now. As of this moment, there are no fancy fish food bags, they are plain white. The food comes in a 40# bag, and the target price is $45 per bag, delivered via FedEx.

The people that are making the food are open to input. The calibration feed looked like a worm, it was approx. 1/8" or slightly smaller in diameter, and anywhere from 3/8" to 3/4" long. The input from the calibration food was that it was too small, and didn't throw by hand out into the pond well, and when put in a feeder, it didn't throw it as far either.

They changed their extruding dies, and now the feed is approx. 3/16" in diameter by 1/2" in length. Both Matt and I think that is too big, so they are going to reduce the size and find a happy medium. After all, this food is supposed to be feeding 3"-6" BG. A pleasant surprise happened when the calibration feed was used in ponds with RES. They started feeding on the pellets. Both Catmandoo and Bruce noticed this, so I feel this is more of a "Sunfish" food than a "Bluegill" food.