Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Best feeding frequency for first year prey fish

I have just recently started to automatically throw Optimal Jr. for my BG, RES, fathead minnows and shiners. What is the best time of the day to feed them? Or multiple times? I will figure out the amount, but I wanted to know thoughts on how many feedings per day and what time.

Thanks!

Your RES will prefer to feed when the light is low. The rest of them don't much seem to care, but even the minnows will be less active on top at noontime on a bluebird day.

I hand throw every day in the evening, unless it's pouring down rain. Sometimes on a cloudy day I'll give them a little extra at lunchtime.

I pellet trained my RES in a cage when they were little. Most of them are pellet hogs. Some of them will come out for the lunchtime bonus feed, but they're a lot more interested in the evening.

It seems everyone's feeding schedule and amounts will vary, but I can tell you how I approached it my first year with HBG, RES and HSB. 500 HBG/90 RES/40 HSB and a pond chuck full of FHM's...

I started with a morning and evening throw, each equalling 1.25 cups (1/3 pound) of Optimal #4 and Junior (50/50 mix). I set the times so that I could be there to observe (around 6:30am and 5pm). I quickly found that my fish were weak feeders...little to no activity in the morning with a bit more in the evening. I stopped the morning feed and found the evening feed to increase some and continued that for the remainder of the season.

Some say that feed amounts should equal what it takes the fish to clean up in about 15 minutes. I do not adhere to this idea because my fish feed so slowly. I can throw feed for almost an hour and they continue to feed, but I would only throw out a total of a 1/3rd pound. The surface hits are spread evenly out over the typical 20-30 minute feed time, no frenzy feeding whatsoever. This year, my feeder goes off at 5pm only and I attend at least every other day and hand feed a section of the bank for the small fish and the crawdads along with some long throws out into the pond.

Wow my BG destroy the feed in less than 10 seconds, fro a TH feeder set at 10 seconds the feed is gone before the blower stops

Such is the range of feeding habits at different ponds...mine could bore one to tears whiles yours leaves you wanting more "before the blower stops". I contribute my lack of "frenzy" to low visibility, but my fish numbers could be lower than I expect too along with plenty of forage..maybe. The mystery of my pond can drive me crazy.

All I can say is that they seem to be feeding well...

Wow, that is a nice BG. Thanks everyone for your advice. Thanks to your knowledge and input, I have established my plan and we will see what happens.