Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Feed training perch

I have around 100 perch in my RAS wanna be tank. They quickly dispatched the FHMs that came along for the ride when I seined them from their mud hole.
I am now trying to feed train them, and though I have read every thread I could find on the subject I have a couple of questions.
I have been feeding them chunks of shrimp from the grocery store, dried meal worms, Aquamax and Game Fish Chow. The love the shrimp, eat the meal worms after they soak up a bit but so far I have never seen them eat the AM or GFC. My plan is to mix the AM with dried krill which I have ordered, gradually increasing the percentage of AM. My question for others who have done this is do the perch eventually come to the surface to the the AM or do they always wait until it sinks? Even when I pre soak it, it seems to float.
Any suggestions or advice?

I've never feed trained perch, but the feed trained ones that I have in a cage are eating the floating AM from the surface, and the ones in the pond will come up and grab pellets from the surface.

No perch but I recently caught in traps about 400 baby RES maybe 1" long. I had an extra cage I built with very small fencing holes I put these RES in now for about 3 weeks. It took about 1 week to get them to feed but I hydrated AM500 in a 1 gallon bag and used a bread dough roller to smash the AM in the bag so it would sink. Only putting in enough AM500 to cover the bottom of the bag when it's laid flat. Then I crushed everyone with the roller with only a few swipes rather then pinching.I started sinking these and the pieces of AM they started eating pretty good now. Next week I am going to try and get them to surface feed, I think they will because now as soon as it hits the water they hit it before it sinks.

Iceman

Even feed trained YP I ordered this Spring to grow out had some fish who refused to continue feeding on AM 400 which is a float/sink and they had been on for several weeks. I netted out the pinch bellied fish and released into the pond hoping they'd make it on invertabrates/zooplankton, but still lost some. Other YP continued to feed with no issues. My point is, I have had problems even with feed trained YP for some reason refusing to feed. Maybe it was the cage, new water chemistry, close proximity to other fish - not sure why. So, feed training YP in my experience isn't automatic like it is with BG.

I know our local hatchery guy uses krill and slowly incorporates pellets like it sounds you are planning to do. If you soften AM 500, 600, LM - you can pinch it and it will sink. I know Steve has used crawler pieces to feed train his SMB and slowly incorporated pellets. I do notice that YP vastly prefer a sink than a floating feed during daylight hours. You may try feeding hydrated pellets pinched and sunk, a few at a time, in low light periods to improve the take.

So in other words some perch are just stupid.

Thanks, I've never really tried pinching AM.

The trick is to hydrate it as per Cody or my directions (you want dough like consistency no a sticky mess) and pinch it to make it more dense so it will sink. Just a few at time at first. Ice man has a great idea hydrating more at time once you are feeding more.

I guarantee you even the stubborn ones will take to the hydrated feed in a few days. Feed them that for a few weeks and then cut them off for a few days and only give them the unhydrated floating feed. They will take to the floating.

What size are these fish and how old are they. The larger and older they are the more difficult it is to train them.

Some fish certainly find a way to thrive, some seem to have a death wish. Hard for me to comprehend why a few fish can't take to feed with they are surrounded by hundreds that get it...guess it's just like people...some are destined to fail!

Or the instinct to avoid eating inanimate objects is so strong in those fish. You have to admit getting a predator fish to feed on in animate objects is not natural. They may actually be the smarter ones!

I've caught domesticated planted trout that ate cigarette butts. I doubt a wild fish would do the same.

They are 4 to 6 inches. They were about three inches when I threw them in what was a pond back in April. Don't know how old that makes them.

IMO your biggest mistake is feeding both AM and Gamefishchow. GFC is negative reinforcement for them while AM is positive or possibly neutral at first eating attempts. When they take a GFC pellet they will not like it and it serves as a BIG negative to eating a pellet. This negative then has to be overcome to get them to try a AM pellet. You are confusing your trainees - a bad idea when feed training. Ditch the GFC for feed training. I don't even consider feeding GFC to any YP - not enough protein in it plus they would rather eat bugs than GFC. GFC usually turns off fish/meat eaters. AM has flavor enhancers plus fish meal a big plus for fish that eat fish. Actually you are better off using 45% to 50% protein pellets when feed traiing for best success.

For taining I add powdered krill and or fish worm juice, crayfish meat/juice or shrimp meat/juice as I soak the pellets. Cooked fish meat juice or chopped raw fish would also probably work well. It adds more flavor to the pellets as they soak. Get the fish eating the small meat pieces then gradually work in the softened pellets over a period of 4-7 days. By day 6 or 7 they will be rising toward the surface at feeding time as Iceman noted. Then it is an easy transition to 50:50 floating and sinking soft pellets. Feed YP near dark - they are more aggressive and "brave" and eat much better in dim light. I better write another article for PBoss magazine about secrets of feed training.

No problemo I can feed the GFC to a fish to be named later.