Anthropic great thread and glad you started it. I believe Dustin is working hard right now on this project. A few other theoretical advantages of sinking feed........... 1) Fish feed has traditionally had carbs mixed with it to provide the desired 'floating pellet' quality that many pondmeisters desire. While these pellets do make fish grow faster, theoretically the fish don't live as long due to damage from carb intake. Essentially (I don't mean to state this as fact, but it is a strong opinion of mine) your fish grow just as large without pellets (or nearly), but it takes more time. With sinking feed the carbs can be decreased, and with it removing the negative impact the carbs have on your fish. The potential to improve the quality of fish feed increases dramatically without the need for carbs in the feed 2) Most fish tend to only feed on floating pellets best during low light conditions. In my experience this doesn't hold quite as true for sinking feeds. In theory this extends the time in a day you can feed your fish. Mine even take well to sinking pellets around my green light when it is completely dark out. And 3) my experience has been that once water temps drop below 55 surface feeding slows tremedously, if not stopping completely. The little I've played with homemade hydrated feed this has not been the case at all. I've had fish feeding on homemade pellets in 40-45 degree water. Hopefully this means a pondmeister could extend his fish feeding an extra month or so in the spring and fall, and possibly feed all winter in the south. In fact, I hope to keep a small spot ice free this winter in my pond and drop sinking pellets off of a belt feeder through the winter months and see what type of response I get.

I hope the experts chime in on this as in my mind incorporating sinking feed into the pond management protocol could be a game changer.