Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Fish food conversions

I was wondering the fish conversion for bass, catfish(blues, channel, yellow)and bluegill.

Bass convert live food 10 to 1, sometimes slightly better. Bass trained to eat pelleted fish food convert 4 to 1. Channel and Blue cat convert 2 to 1, sometimes slightly better. Yellow cat, to my knowledge, haven't been tested. They have no commercial market and can't be efficiently raised on a fish farm, compared to other species. Bluegill convert 1.5 to 1, sometimes 2 to 1.

Thanks for the info. From what i heard, yellows grow the fastest so they must have a better conversion.

Another thing is that the really little catfish have a better converson than adult catfish. When they are newly hatched they get almost 1:1. Their converson rate slowly drops as they grow untill it gets to 2:1 when they reach about a pound. It works out so that it takes only 1.5 pounds of feed to raise a catfish to 1 pound.
Thier converson rate can also decrease if there are problems with water quality, disease, bad food, ect.
-Scott

Could you guys give me a scientific name for this "yellow catfish?" Do you mean yellow bullhead? I'm familiar with channels, whites, blues, and flatheads but never heard of this "yellow catfish."

While working in Tennessee, I noticed that a lot of people referred to flathead (Pylodictis olivaris) as yellow cat. While living in Georgia as a youth, the flathead was also called "yellow cat".

In the south, a "yellow cat" is a flathead, also called aps, ops, opelousas.