Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Feeding Bluegills Mealworms

I stocked Bluegill fingerlings a year ago and could not get them excited about any pellets -- I tried them all. Then I tried crushed dried mealworms and they go buck wild! Any issues with mealworms other than it's expensive? Would like to wean them off to pellets.

Most every self-respecting bluegill I've come across takes to feed almost immediately, so your situation is odd to me. However, maybe as fingerlings, they were a bit too small for the available feed.

It does help to soak the pellets for at least 5 minutes before feeding. You'll get more 'acceptance' of the feed that way.

Hand feeding or auto feeding? It much easier to get them going when you are feeding at the same time at the same place every day. Meal worms sounds like a hand feeding type thing.

In my (hazy) recollection, a lot of the aquarium people use powdered dried meal worms mixed in with food flakes to start their fry on eating food.

I may have even read of the commercial fish hatcheries starting some of their fry on powdered meal worms on those conveyor belt feeders to get those fish growing rapidly?

I think if you keep throwing in your commercial pellets with decreasing amounts of crushed mealworms, your BG will eventually figure out where the extra calories are floating.

Don't kid yourself. If the Bluegill or Hybrid Bluegill are 2"-3" long they will eat Optimal Starter #4 feed.

Just ordered some Optimal Starter #4 feed for an automatic fish feeder.
I should have never started feeding the crushed meal worms -- BG crack.

They will love you for it! I don't think there is anything wrong with the meal worms, I fed our fish some meal worms, crickets, black fly larvae, and some "insect melody" - whatever that is over the last couple of weeks. They were happy to gobble it up almost as fast as we threw it out.

I'd bet if you mix some meal worms in with the starter #4 and throw them at the same time....will be a very easy switch for them to make on the food.

If you really want to amp up the conversion to pellet feed, soak the pellets in water for at least 5 minutes, assuming you are hand feeding.