Asking - "If I was using my own fish food what should I grow? Are there any plants they would consume whole? (Bluegills)."
Most all members on this Pond Mgmt forum utilize prepared pelletized fish foods. A few have used natural food supplements such as by GW below. FYI - bluegill are not vegetarians. They are predators who consume primarily protein rich invertebrates. As juveniles and larger individuals BG will readily eat fish eggs and fry when they are commonly available. Thus I would not plan to grow very many BG in your pond using plant materials as a main food unless you can formulate some form of high protein type material that is palatable to the BG. Soy meal has recently been incorporated into pellet formulations for fish by some manufacturers.
As I know it, for your topic you should look for species of fish that readily eat plants and focus your potential pond fish species to be ones that feed primarily lower on the food chain - primarily vegetarians – plant eaters. Most all common pond fish species available that are considered sport fish commonly thrive on animal based foods such as invertebrates and small fish. Their first foods are the small zooplankton (rotfiers) and as these fish grow they thrive on eating larger and larger animal morsels. Plants in the diet are often incidentally ingested rather than choice foods.
One exception that I know are those in the tilapia group and even tilapia are known to eat small fish mostly as fry and small fingerlings when plants are not available. Your research may reveal other vegetarian based fish species that could work in your small pond. You have a steep learning curve here on this topic.
A PBoss dormant member was GW who used black soldier flies and their larvae to supplementally feed his fish. I think he grew the fly larvae mostly using waste food. Here is a link to that lengthy thread. Note a lot of the links in the thread no longer connect.
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=87511&page=1If you are successful in finding and feeding your fish all plant based food please return to report your results so we can learn about your fish growing adventures.
