Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Purina Aquamax Sportfish MVP Date Code

Looking for advice/feedback. Picked up 20 bags of special order Purina Aquamax MVP at my local CoOp today, 2/25/26. Born on date of the feed is August 29, 2025. This is based on a date code on the bags of 25241. Production day was the 241'st day of 2025.

I have my CoOp purchasing agent discussing the date code issue with his Purina contacts, they sell a lot of Purina animal feed. We will not use up these 20 bags until July. When I purchase Cargil Triton 4512 I have no quality or freshness issues but have had picking & shipping errors out of the Louisiana warehouse.

Will need to begin light feed throwing in a few weeks here in Tennessee. What worries me is I don't know the conditions it has been stored in for 6 months. Bags look normal, feed looks normal.

Thanks, Mike

Can you get the storage conditions from the coop?

I have fed leftover Aquamax in the Spring just about every year, with no appearance, smell, or feeding issues. It is stored dry and cool all Winter. If the coop uses similar storage, I would not expect any problems.

Thanks Theo..The complete date code is 25241SJE10 0224, I am now wondering if the feed is older than I originally posted?

Emailed an inquiry form to Purina corporate in St Paul, MN, will follow up with a phone call today.

MH

It will be interesting to see what you find out. Feed degrades over time, vitamins lose potency, etc. Normal shelf life is 12 months, but I've fed feed that was 2-3 years old. The fish didn't seem to know the difference, but since I am not a production facility, I don't typically keep tabs on FCR, etc.

A supplier that raises trout said they had to switch suppliers 2 years ago. Same feed supplier, supposedly same food but their FCR's dropped roughly 15% and the price of the food actually went up $1/bag. It was a big enough change that they had to cancel a few fish contracts.

Palatability & nutrient loss concern me. I like Cargill Triton versus Purina Aquamax in regards to palatability, CNBG seem more aggressive on the Cargill. I like the Purina MVP for its multiple size pellets and mix of floating & sinking. Crude protein is not much different... In our struggle to improve a 54 acre HOA lake with limited funding, we can't afford poor growing seasons. Our margin of error is thin... I will report back on what I learn.

I prefer as much floating as possible so that I can see feeding response and see how much food is consumed. Sinking is needed initially in some aspects to get harder to feed train fish actually feed trained, but then once they are feed trained they all will take floating food. I have feed trained Hybrid Crappie and Redear Sunfish and both will eat floating food. Yellow Perch, SMB, LMB, HSB, BG, HBG, CC, FHM, GSH, Common Carp, and all species of trout eat floating food.

The best FCR that I have seen has been from the old Optimal, now Endurance fish food. 40# of that feed was equivalent to 60# of Purina Aquamax in FCR.

Purina Date Code: 25241SJE10 0224 - Feed is 6 months old.

25 - Year
241 - Julian date, 241st day of year, (August 29)
SJE10 0224 - Plant location, shift, time of day

MH

Thanks esshup & Theo for the reply, appreciate your thoughts...Now that I know the feed was truly produced 6 months ago, we plan to start throwing it out in a few weeks.10 day weather forecast in TN looks excellent.

I have recruited a few LMB into the feeding process but not many. They certainly hang around, observe, ambush.

How has the Optimal/Endurance transition worked out? I have purchased from Optimal in the past but I need to give Endurance some business this year.

MH

Many forum members here last year ordered Endurance and were happy.