Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations how many times a day yall feeding?

how many times a day yall running your feeder? i eliminated my 4:00 PM e.s.t. feed event. i noticed that they didnt eat well yesterday at 4. i still have a 7:00, 10:00, and 8:00pm.

i'm feeding bg..

I only have time to feed at dusk, and all the feed is consumed voraciously. I only hand feed and cant consistently feed the fish at any other time.

Feeding 3 times - 9am ,1 pm and 5 pm. As it gets hot I will go to earlier and later but not near dark. By late July will likely feed 3 times at 7am , 11 am and 7 pm.

I feed around 10 am and 7 pm. Can't use my feeder (geese) so I feed by hand.

why not near dark?

probably cc. if you have them, they'll bully a lot of the other fish

Twice. 7:15 AM and 6:45 PM. 3 seconds each. They eat it all in about 4 minutes.

I don't have any CC. LMB eat the lions share, BG hold their own and RES are successful in stealing a few morsels.

Only once a day in the evening. I'd prefer to feed in early morning as it's more optimum for oxygen, but don't I like to get up at 5 A.M. and I feed by hand.

I have found over the years i get the same results feeding once day as I did twice a day, and I use less feed feeding once a day. I also get a better feeding response once a day vs. twice a day.

Several years ago I got some trout (I don't have trout anymore), and they would only feed once a day for some reason. Probably the hatchery only fed them once a day. Initially I was concerned they wouldn't grow as well as trout I had feed twice a day. Turns out they were just as heavy and as fast growing as the trout I had fed twice a day. So I have since come to realize this is true of my bluegills, yellow perch, and smallmouth bass.

The only exception is very small fish that I produce from eggs as in fish under 4 inches. I feed them 3 to 2 times a day. With the really small fry I am feed training I use a belt feeder and they are fed 24/7.

Cecil do you hand feed to facilitate observation or do you just not want the cost of a feeder or is there some other reason? I'm just curious and given that you raise fish for a living figure you have a good reason for hand feeding.

Jeff,

Two reasons:

1.) I Can't afford an automatic feeder(s) and I'd have to have 4 of them for each pond.

2.) I actually enjoy feeding the fish with the side benefit of keeping tabs on how things are going health wise. As we all know feeding is an indicator of health or if there are any problems with the pond. Robustly feeding fish are healthy.

The dog likes the fish feed too and it's the high point of her day to tag along during feeding time. This reason doesn't really count though.

Thanks Cecil, I knew that you would have good reasons. DIED loves to hand feed his fish as well. I got to participate once or twice and thought it was great. His fish are so feed conditioned that as you walk towards his pond the fish begin to swim towards the shoreline that you are standing on - very much fun to watch.

I feed at around 6 AM and 8:30 PM, I have my cell phone programmed to remind me of the evening feeding, the morning feeding I don't always get to, heavy rain this morning and heavy winds on other days will keep me from it as I see no point in wasting the feed. I always get to my evening feed once the winds die down and the sun sets enough it isn't hitting the water. I'm only feeding yellow perch though and they seem to prefer these conditions. Once dock is built I will install a feeder so the feed reaches the center of the pond and wind won't be as much of an issue, then twice a day doses will be the rule. For now I have a pretty strong side arm pitch that gets it out there to the sweet spot, usually see a splash within 5 seconds of the first pellet hitting the water. I have noticed more FA this year though since feeding steadily so I may be putting her on a little thick.

I don't feed near dark as the LMB have a visual advantage over BG and will wait around the feeder and massacre the BG while they feed. BG know this and don't feed as well at dark. It’s a small thing and can be reversed to your advantage if you have to many small BG you want the LMB to crop.

I am mainly feeding BG which have small stomachs and IMO grow faster with several small feedings.

I'm feeding at 7:00 am, noon and 8:00pm for about 10 seconds. The Aquamax 600 I found is 7/32 dia pellets so my TH feeder isn't throwing a lot of it. Right now I'm only feeding BG so I'll probably have to change this when I get the bass in. I didn't think about the bass ambushing the BG at dusk. I won't have to worry about that for a year or so though.

I feed twice a day, and try to adjust the feeding time slightly once a month so that it's roughly an hour past sunrise and an hour before sunset. AquaPro feeder, and I have it set for 2 seconds. I'm feeding AM 500/600.

Scot,

Have you ever considered if you went to once a day you'd have less filamentous algae problems?

One of the down sides to feeding an artificial diet is you can also be feeding nuisance aquatic vegetation.

Not until just now! What time of day then? It'd be easy to adjust the timer.

Best time would be early in the morning as that is when your oxygen dial cycle is recovering from a night of respiration vs. photosynthesis during the day. I would say still fairly low light level but late enough in the morning for the oxygen recovery to take place.

About 15-30 minutes after sunrise?

My fish population is in it's 4 year, is healthy, growing strong and well established. I used to feed the mixture of AM500/600 but have formed the theory that I don't want to feed the small BG anymore and have switched to AM600 only. I figure that the small BG are LMB food. The few that make it through the two year predator gauntlet will replace the adult mortallity and have earned the right of a free meal when it fits in their mouth. Besides, the LMB eat most of the feed anyway.

Thanks to Cecil for initially pellet training my LMB. They have never forgot and are pushing 3 lbs after three seasons. Pretty good for Yankee LMB!

I feed AM 500/600 2x daily - sunrise [6:00 AM] and sunset [9:00 PM]. I like low light conditions as my YP seem most likely to feed at these times. I need my BG population hammered so hopefully early and late feedings allow the SMB, HSB and YP to hammer a few YOY fish at least. However, with my pondweed so prevalent now I wonder if any YOY need to leave the security of it and I'm thinking their populations are going to explode. That's why I'm considering GC stocking ASAP.

I am feeding 2 times a day, 7:00 AM and 7:00 PM, Sweeney Feeders about 8 seconds each. Most of the food is eaten in about 3-4 minutes. I am using Game Fish Chow which is stocked at my feed store, I notice most people are using Aqua Max. I would be interested to know your opinion about Game Fish Chow? Maybe I should have them order some Aqua Max, what are the differences between the two? Game Fish Chow pellets are all sizes which I thought would be good for all sizes of Bluegill. Although my bass were not pellet trained, I do have 3 or 4 at each feeder taking pellets.

There is a lot of information about the advantages of Aqua-Max on this site. As JHAP's eloguent new visitor guide advised, Googling "Pondboss.com" and "AquaMax)will get you to the right place. I wish they would make a mixed pellet size bag like GFC. To overcome this I, and many others, mix the AD05 and AD06.

Bing

I mostly use GFC to feed BG. It is plenty good enough for BG and all sizes of fish can eat it due to different sizes. The same people make both GFC and AM. The main difference is the protein % (32% for GFC and 40-45 for AM depending on size) also AM has a higher fat content.. Plenty of studies show 32% is plenty for BG. AM is significantly more expensive which adds up if you are feeding much . I use AM as a supplement when I hand feed (600 for HSB and big BG). I up the AM use in fall for pre-winter conditioning. I sometimes mix in some AM 400 and or 500 with the GFC about 10%.

ewest, we're probably spoiled being close to Richmond. What are you paying for the GFC vs the AM?