Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Do offspring of pellet fed Fish eat pellets?

I have very little experience with pellet trained fish so am looking for a little info. I have read that pellet training fish usually requires placing the fish in containment and using a "eat pellets or die," approach.

If you stock pellet trained fish, BG for example, will their fingerlings automatically start eating pellets or do you need to capture them and place them in containment?

Any other info/incite would be appreciated.

back about a year ago, i would fish this same spot every day for a couple months, when i would go it was about the same time every day and same location, i would bring 3 to 5 slices of bread and feed all the sunfish that hung around. as the days went on from me starting i noticed more and more sunfish would be there waiting for me to feed them, even the what i believe to be YOY started feeding on the bread too. so i believe that its a monkey-see monkey-do strategy that is easier accomplished when they are young? not sure just my take.

That is correct - BG and some other species are subject to conditioning behavior. They can be trained as yoy as hatcheries do or will be conditioned in a pond by seeing others eat.

I believe it is a combination of things. Monkey see, monkey do is the primary course of how fish are trained in a pond setting. Having fish that were previously fed and conditioned to eating pellets helps. Having a pellet that isn't pellet shaped is another (I think). i.e. RES have been notoriously hard to pellet train. Optimal Bluegill food isn't shaped like a traditional oval/round pellet. Is that the reason why RES are much easier to get pellet trained, or is it the food formulation? I'm leaning towards the shape, then once they taste it, they continue to eat it.

But, I also believe that having generation upon generation of pellet trained fish contributes to the offspring eating pellets too.

I've had, trained and worked with Springer Spaniels for a while (early 1990's). I've seen pups from great genetic parents (great field trial dogs) do things on their own without training that pups from a different pedigree (not as great field trial dogs) need months of training to "get". I believe fish are the same way (to an extent).

I agree. I think certain responses can become ingrained, and actually passed along from one generation to the next.

I suspect it is more species dependent than anything, i.e., those species easy to train in a hatchery are most likely to have pond recruits that pick up on pellets.

I recently read some posts from Bill C. stating he removes YP ribbons to limit recruitment and another that states he supplemental stocks pellet trained YP to keep the number of pellet trained YP up in the pond. This leads me to believe that YP recruits in a pond don't pick up on the pellets by observing other fish very well.

Hopefully, Bill C will see this post and chime in.

I have all sizes of BG from both last years hatch and this years eating pellets. All the way down to inch long BG "tasting" it with 1.5-2" BG gobbling down AM400.

If you want the young ones to catch on quick, provide the right size food. My small BG would always peck at the larger pellets and get a little that way, but the larger BG would clean everything up before the pellets got soft enough for the small BG to get much.

When I FINALLY got my first Aquamax order I had a few bags of AM400 just to try it out. I had no idea it was so much smaller than AM500 would be, but it is very small. Started throwing the AM400 very near the shore while throwing a mix of AM500 and AM600 out further from the bank. The little BG took right to it and within a couple weeks would line up at the shore line and look at me on the 4 wheeler (that I feed from) waiting for me to throw the feed to them.

Also feed trained about 5 small red ear slider turtles without the intention to do so. They were so cute and small I just had to keep feeding them. They also would swim up within a few feet of the shore and wait till I threw them feed. Funny.

That is a great suggestion. Next spring I will throw my CC chow as far out as possible but I will get a bag of the new Optima to throw closer to shore and near the brush piles to see if I can get more BG on pellets.

The Five Monkeys Experiment

An experimenter puts 5 monkeys in a large cage. High up at the top of the cage, well beyond the reach of the monkeys, is a bunch of bananas. Underneath the bananas is a ladder.

The monkeys immediately spot the bananas and one begins to climb the ladder. As he does, however, the experimenter sprays him with a stream of cold water. Then, he proceeds to spray each of the other monkeys.

The monkey on the ladder scrambles off. And all 5 sit for a time on the floor, wet, cold, and bewildered. Soon, though, the temptation of the bananas is too great, and another monkey begins to climb the ladder. Again, the experimenter sprays the ambitious monkey with cold water and all the other monkeys as well. When a third monkey tries to climb the ladder, the other monkeys, wanting to avoid the cold spray, pull him off the ladder and beat him.

Now one monkey is removed and a new monkey is introduced to the cage. Spotting the bananas, he naively begins to climb the ladder. The other monkeys pull him off and beat him.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The experimenter removes a second one of the original monkeys from the cage and replaces him with a new monkey. Again, the new monkey begins to climb the ladder and, again, the other monkeys pull him off and beat him – including the monkey who had never been sprayed.

By the end of the experiment, none of the original monkeys were left and yet, despite none of them ever experiencing the cold, wet, spray, they had all learned never to try and go for the bananas.

Link to source:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/73492989/Steph...-Rhesus-Monkeys

I think to a certain degree it would be a learned/herd mentality type of behavior.

Also I love the 5 monkey's story. So I vote you try it with fish and document the results. Heck, you may even get published.

Great story Cody.

About 10 years ago one of my ponds had bass that were really, really hook shy. I had over fished it. I even tried minnows and grass hoppers to no avail. When the fish heard my foot steps they got lockjaw. They knew there were strings attached.

Coincidentally I decided to fish an absentee neighbors small bass heavy pond. I knew that he wouldn't mind since he lived out of State and I had the grazing lease on the place. I caught about a dozen stunted, skinny bass and decided to put them in my pond to see if they would grow. I fin clipped them. About a week later I tossed in a small bait and caught a couple of the new fish. Then my original fish stated hitting and I caught about a dozen of my original bass. Learned behavior? Follow the leader? Crowd mentality? I don't know but have never really tried it again.

Competition is the key, IMO. How may times have you seen a LMB just staring at your fishing lure but won't strike until it sees another fish showing interest? One time I was fishing in an irrigation pond where I knew there were fish but fished for an hour with a large swim bait with three hooks with no bites. When I did get a bite, there were two fish hooked.

I've had non pellet trained perch eat pellets along with my feed trained perch. I know this because they were much smaller and therefore hatched in my trophy female only pond. (Made the mistake of sexing perch by urogenital openings). Not 100 percent accurate!

Also have minnow sized perch attacking hydrated pellets. My perch have been pellet trained for over 30 generations.

Here is my 2 cents after feed training a small number of RES every year over the last several years. There are are likely several things going on, the most important in my opinion is that non-hydrated pellets are simply not easy to crush with the pharygneal teeth in the back of the throat in smaller RES. Taste, texture, and shape may also play a role as well. The small number of RES I have in my aquarium right now still frequently spit out the Optimal when it is first fed and really don't get going on eating it until it has hydrated and softened a bit. I will say that they do seem to like the taste of Optimal way better than Aquamax, but both types of feed are regularly spit out until it has softened. The optimal they will eat after it has softened, the Aquamax not so much. I am thinking RES would take to eating pellets much better if the feed was formulated more like soft dog food is.

It is interesting to me that the Optimal feed is getting comments about its shape maybe being better. I can see that to be the case. But what makes the comment seem odd to me is that the Optimal feed I have seen pictures of looks like it came directly out of the pelleting machine. In years gone by I have fed a lot of hog feed that is pelleted and the Optimal looks just like hog feed coming out of the pelleting machine. The odd part of this to me is I would assume the pellets we are used like Aqua-Max or Cargill are round. I'm no expert on feed making, but I would assume that it takes another process (maybe a tumbler while the pellets are still soft) to create the round pellets we are used to. So perhaps the Optimal feed is a simpler process????

I don't know. Just trying to envision how the round pellets are made. I've seen the machines in action making feed like the Optimal pellets. They change the length of the pellet by changing the cut off arm speed I believe.

Anyone know the specifics of the making of fish feed pellets?

Thread hijack.

snrub, the rounder pellets are pellets that are cut shorter (i.e. length is cut close to the pellet diameter).

Mfg. process is like you describe - extrusion machine.

I think the fish that school well will take to pellets. How many I do not know.



This year we have seen yellow perch take to feed that are much much smaller than our original stocked perch. Our pond is a small pond about and acre so this may help too.

I am leaning to the fact that I run under water lights in our pond all summer. These lights bring in the bugs natural feed for young perch. They will turn on their side and slowly come up from the bottom and take the bug off the top of the water. I think feeding with floating feed having these lights has increased our young perch taking to pellets.

Cheers Don.

Good thread with several good practical observations. I see higher numbers of new small yellow perch conditioned to eating pellets being related to pond size. The smaller the pond the higher percentage of new fish learning to eat pellets probably because a higher percent of the fish in a small pond are exposed to or directly see the pellets. If pellet feeding is only located in one relatively small area of a large pond expect fewer numbers of the total population to eat pellets. Feed in several areas, then more fish in the entire pond will be eating pellets. My comment about adding pellet trained YP to the pond each year was because I want to insure that there is an unusually high percentage of the YP always present that eat pellets and thus grow optimally.

As mentioned, fish species seems to have an effect on how easily the new fish begin to eat pellets. Some due to natural or instinctive feeding habits will more readily attempt to eat a pellet versus a nonmoving or an invertebrate shape. Pellet type, size, and texture also play roles in how 'well' new fish begin to eat pellets. Number of previous generations that were pellet trained also plays a role. From my experience, numerous factors contribute. When several of the factors are present more of the new fish will be eating pellets.

In feed training, would that be like crowding?

I find it amusing that I have old aquaculture texts that say yellow perch and largemouth bass are almost impossible to feed train. Now it's the norm.

I'll bet trout were not easy to feed at first. However the first feed training by monks may go back to 1420 accordng to some sources.