Wondering if anyone in the NE area of Kansas has found a place that sells Aquamax? I've checked several dealers and they want 30 plus in shipping per bag to get it for me. Any ideas? Thanks

Aquamax struggles with their network of dealers and selective deliveries. If they don't have a volume going to a certain coop or feed store it isn't practical for them to help the individual out. Sometimes people can band together and get a pallet going to a certain place but then the dealer or feed store has to sell the whole pallet somehow. Maybe someone else in Kansas can go in on some feed with you?

I'm spoiled with Optimal fish food product and business and delivery model. Fabulous product, good research and development going on, chances to be a product tester for them, plus, the owners are approachable normal people like us, they even monitor the forum and jump in if there are any questions or concerns. They aim to make even the lowly individual pond owner happy. They sell a superior product at a fair price with no shipping costs. The fish in my pond tell me by experience that no other food calls them to dinner as avidly and under a bigger variety of weather or water conditions than the fishy-flavored, slightly oil, delectable, tantalizingly buoyant pellets of Optimal fish food. (no they don't pay me for this, but again this year my order came nearly the next day and the fish were in a feeding frenzy within minutes

Honestly I haven't looked much into the optimal feeds. Are they comparable to aquamax as far as being higher protein? How much did you have to order for free shipping? now you have me curios.

Shipping is free on all orders, any size, any bag.

check out their webpage, read all about their sizes and shapes. They have starter fertilizers in smaller pails if you have a very special need.

https://optimalfishfood.com/online-store/

For me, since their pellets naturally come in different sizes from individual tiny fragments to longer extruded tube shaped pellets I could get by with their Bluegill designated fish food. But for my smaller minnows, I get the Bluegill Jr which goes through a smaller diameter extrusion tube/die. I then mix the 2 bags 50/50.

A lot of people like getting the larger pellets if they have hybrid stripers or larger LMB that want to hit something with some heft to it.

I'm not all up on the fishfood science, but their research and development, quality materials, and the fishy oily taste is a winner for my pond.

Many have reported excellent growth rates. There is good threads on this if you do a google search for pondboss forum and optimal. There also are good fish nutrition researchers on this forum who are curious if the lifespan of the fish will be altered by a certain type of food that might be higher in carbs or higher in protein.

Thank you sir, I will definitely look into them and that's a great idea mixing the feeds. I like feeds with multiple pellet sizes sinking and floating to kinda appease everyone.

I like both AquaMax and Optimal. Optimal is a bit more expensive per pound and comes in 40 pound sacks vs 50 pound for AquaMax.

Personally, I wish more feeds came in sinking pellets, as fewer would be lost to geese.

Both the Optimal Bluegill Jr. and the Optimal Bluegill feed come in multiple sized pellets in the same bag. I mix Optimal Bluegill and Optimal Largemouth 50/50 in my Texas Hunter Feeder. The year after I switched from Aquamax to Optimal I had a lot less filamentous algae in my pond.

Here is a picture from a clients pond that we ice fished this past winter. These Bluegills were (I think) mixed in with Redear Sunfish that were stocked as 1"-2.5" fish in May 2019.
They weighed 0.8# each.

On average he feeds 21# of Optimal Bluegill/Bass per month per surface acre. He will have fish feeding on the floating feed right up to ice on and the fish will resume feeding within a few days of ice off.

This Hybrid Bluegill weighed 0.9#. What isn't apparent in the pictures is just how thick these fish are. There are bigger HBG in there, that are over a pound. He believes this one was spawned in the pond, the HBG were all stocked as 1"-2.5" fish in May 2019 also. He believes that the HBG that are over 1# are the original stockers and the ones under a pound are the first year offspring.

Good to know and beautiful HBG! Looks like optimal is really doing his fish some good. Thank you for your response.

Ordered this yesterday.

Well that was quick delivery!

However, I do notice a dent in the upper right corner of the box. Hopefully your fish will eat that "broken" fish food.

Here FedEx has not delivered 2 bags of Optimal that a customer ordered to be direct shipped for 2 weeks. He keeps getting daily messages from FedEx that it's out for delivery, then the end of the day another one pops up saying "tomorrow".

FedEx delivered my fish food Sunday night at 8pm when they said it would be delivered on Monday.

I just received my 2 bags of bluegill optimal a couple hrs ago, my first order, I been using game fish chow from Purina I think. I had ordered the Optimal last Thursday.
It had multi length pellets which works pretty good when tossing some out by hand, the little ones go after the tiny pieces while the bigger fish go after the larger ones. I was wondering how much the propeller would break it up when it was going thru the feeder.

I go on-line to TSC and order Aquamax and have it sent to the nearest store (about 5 miles here) and pick it up free of shipping.
Any store to offers Purina produces can order and you can pick up at that store, or at lest that is the way it works here in Michigan.
Hope this helps!

I clicked on the above link from CC. Free shipping and very fast. I'm guessing it was around 16 hours from the time I hit confirm on the website. Only kind I have used is the cheap stuff at farm store. My wife sent me that picture and asked wht the hell did ya order now LOL. Normally I come home to a mailbox stuffed with things along with boxes on the porch from her stuff. So she got just a taste of it from me this time.

esshup a Fedex delivery more than a day or two late means they lost the box, can't imagine there is any other reason. Might want to cancel and reship.

Rstringer, enjoy the response of your fish to that stuff! Your wife also might object to you bringing your hands up closer to her sniffer after handtossing the optimal. It has a pretty strong (but beautifully attractive) fishy odor. When I have to be around the more refined clientelle or will be headed to church later, I wear a glove on my 'throwing hand' The smell kind of wears off rather than washing off

Supposedly the label came off the box..... Optimal re-shipped the bags to him today.

Funky, TSC here wants to charge 30-40 shipping. I wish it was free to store for me cause there is one about 15 miles away. Waiting for an answer from another dealer. Looks like people really like optimal and that's where ill be headed if this dealer doesn't pull through.

I threw alil bit in tonight. Got a few jumpers 4 it. For the 1st time it was a pretty good response I thought. My fishies and I say thank you lol.

They charge you to deliver it to THEIR store??? That's crazy. It's free here in SC. That's where I buy it from.

Do you know if Optimal still ships hand-thrown 1 inch pellets? I ordered some a couple weeks ago but haven't seen or heard a thing.

Anthropic,
My shipment of Optimal Bass not the hand throw arrived today that I ordered on 3/14. The Optimal Jr. arrived earlier without delay. I called last week and Nathan said that they had just finished running a batch. I’m assuming that business is booming for them this year as many people are making the switch to Optimal and they are doing their best to keep up with the increased demand. In addition to that I’m sure that they are seeing delays from their suppliers. Give them a call they will happily tell you what the situation may be that is holding up your order. Great company to deal with as a customer.
Heppy

Thanks for the update, Heppy. I'll give them a call, really love watching big LMB, HSB, and even RBT (at this time of year) smash those giant pellets!

Yes they do. Give them a call and you will get an answer. They are very customer orientated. They even called me today to let me know what was going on with the one customer of mine that direct ordered the food from them. They didn't have to do that, but they did.

Just to update: My final attempt with a local dealer paid off. I asked for aquamax mvp and he said no problem. I explained what the other local dealers told me about shipping costs and he said that's ridiculous . I told him for starters I would need a bag every two weeks. He went on to tell me he was gonna order extra to stay ahead of my pick up times. He took my number and will be calling when it arrives. zero shipping cost, finally!

I hadn't yet called, but Dustin at Optimal called me today. They did get my order & shipped it a few days ago, but I never got any notice from Fed Ex. Should be here soon.

He also reported that they have most feed available now, unlike last year after covid hit. I really appreciate the call, very good customer service.