Anybody a part of this years Optimal trial studies?

I got involved with the trial sample earlier this year where they simply sent me about 5 pounds of food to try out and respond with observations. I was emailed the other day that I was to be used again for a second trial...I thought "cool, I like that". Delivery truck shows up the other day with about 70 pounds of optimal in a box.

Holy Smokes!

This trial is a bit more regimented...Use the 40 pound bag of Optimal BG as a control (I was using Opt BG anyway) for three days, then pick one of 7 smaller bags (~4 lb) of mystery pellets and use it for 3 days, then switch back to the BG feed for 3 day, then try a different mystery bag, and so on...record time of day, amount fed, amount left over, and any observations.

I am looking forward to the trials to say the least, but I actually ordered too much food last spring and now have way more than I can use for the remainder of the season. I'm thinking about bagging the excess up in gallon ziplocks and hiding it in the freezer with the hopes my wife does not feed it to me this winter.

I'm in it also..
Dustin says do NOT freeze excess feed. The moisture freezes but the oils don't and it just doesn't end well. He says bag and keep dry in a climate controlled room.
Yeah, it may be tuff for me to get 30 days out of this, not sure I have 20 days even of feeding left. I'll do what I can I guess.
Of the last 8 yrs our first snow was in late sept. 7 of those..last year it was oct 1..

This sounds very interesting. Dustin is such a great guy to work with. Hopefully we get a lot of results reported on this site.

How does one get in on a trial?

OK Snipe...no freezing...hide it in the shoe caddy in the closet then.

Pat, I think the invite came via email. I have purchased optimal for the last two years online so they had my address, but I really don't remember how I got in.

Pat, watch for the open trials listed on their website.

Thanks snipe

Noel, be sure to keep feed bags dry. I got Optimal shipment of 11 bags that had to be transported in back of pickup truck to the pond. In the rain.

Let's just say that the bags are not proof against hard rain in a moving vehicle. Most of them had to be thrown away due to mold.

Well, it seems that my fish have turned off the feed completely this last week regardless of what was thrown. I had a couple more samples to try. All in all, this trial was difficult for me to wrap my head around. My fish are so unpredictable anyhow and have never fed like they were very hungry.

I would go to the pond and throw a small handful or two where the HSB typically fed and the same to the HBG area, wait for feeding to start, and then fade a little and throw more. This was usually in the 10-20 minute range between throws. I would do this for an hour. The most I ever threw out in one session was about 1/3 pound total (about a cup and a half of food) and the least, as of recently, about 0.1 pounds of feed. This should show you how little my fish are interested in feeding. They are healthy and NOT skinny, maybe just overly conscience of their figures???lol

I have not sat down with my notes and critiqued them yet, but aside from the amounts of feed that the fish consumed during the sessions. I don't recall any striking observations from session to session that didn't happen inside of some of the control sessions too.

At any rate, it is going to be difficult to report back to Optimal with any degree of confidence that what little differences there were between feeding sessions actually means anything. I will be as factual as I can and hopefully they have not wasted time on my finicky fish.

Anybody see any big differences in feeds or take a different approach to the trials?

That's really the only reason I dont want to take my cats out. I only have to shake the can and they start moving. Looks like sharks moving around under there. I'm sure one or 2 of them are the grass crap. My water is just 2 murky to be able to see them. I can see the whiskers every once in a while.

I think the weather we've had over the last couple weeks has the fish in a bit of a funk. I'm still running night time aeration, and I've noticed the surface temp has dropped from mid 70°s to mid 60°s since Monday.

I feed half a cup of Optimal Starter #3 twice a day. Typically, the GSH and FHM will have that cleaned up in 2-3 minutes with the help of a handful of Hoover RES.

Several times this past week I haven't thrown the whole half cup because there was so little interest from the fish.

QA, I'm in the same trial but my results were not the same. For whatever reason, I did note some differences, BUT you and I don't know which bag has what-in it.. And I'm sure we didn't run the same trial number in the same order. I was only able to get through 4 of the 7, My pond has ice around the shallows this am, made it to 15 last night so it's over for me..
I did try something different on one of the feeds. On day 2 of one of them where I had very little activity, after 30 min I threw some control out and had a very obvious pickup of interest in feeding, so that particular # was not attractive and I confirmed it so that and a buck will get ya a cup of coffee until all results are in. :-))

Do you live on your pond Snipe? I'm considering inviting myself for a visit sometime. LOL

I do but my house is in town..
You're welcome any time!

I tried that a couple times when the fish showed little activity, but without the any more interest shown.