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Feeding Fish - A New Fact Sheet | |
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Bill Hirsche, aquaculture technician at Lethbridge, throwing
feed out to trout at one of the local research ponds.
If you don’t want to trouble yourself with prepared feeds but still want your fish to grow quickly there are a number of ways to encourage nature to provide more for your fish. An older pond with a moderate amount of aquatic weeds and a more developed shoreline habitat will provide an environment suitable for the production of plankton, freshwater shrimp and other natural foods. You can encourage this natural pond aging process by planting aquatic and shoreline vegetation or by providing artificial submerged habitat structures. A light placed safely near a pond has proven to attract flying insects, a good source of free and natural fish food.
If you need to supplement the fish’s diet, then use a high protein dry floating feed, purchased through your fish supplier or local farm supply store. There are different pellet sizes, depending on the size of your fish. Make certain the smallest fish in your pond have no problem swallowing the feed pellets. Your fish supplier will be able to recommend the appropriate feed pellet size for your fish. Prepared feeds deteriorate quickly if not stored properly. Store feed off the ground in a consistently cool, dry area, free of rodents and insects.
Do not overfeed your fish, only provide what the fish can eat in a few minutes and then stop.
If food is left over in half an hour, you’ve fed too much and risk harming the pond’s water quality.
For more information on feeding, please obtain the fact sheet “Feeding Fish in Your Dugout or Pond FS485/50-1”. Hard copies can be obtained by calling 1-800-292-5697 or download an order form.
The contents of this page are no longer available.
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This document is maintained by Stacey Tames.
This information published to the web on July 21, 2005.
Last Reviewed/Revised on January 17, 2006.
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