Backyard Aquaponics
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wife gave them some blood worms & started a nice worm bed too and they ate some but going to get pellets today. any suggestions?

anyone ?

I dont know anything about sunfish but wiki suggests they eat worms, maggots and insects.

You could try the pellets?

You are in for a challenge. Pumpkinseed are closely related to green sunfish, bluegill and red ear sunfish. They are considered carnivore. So you are looking to get them on a 40-45% protein pellet. Something for ciclids may work, trout feed is probably high protein too. Make sure that the pellets are small enough to easily fit in the fish's mouth. Keep in mind the diameter will double once the pellet gets soaked. The fish is unlikely to try to eat something it cannot fit in its mouth and swallow whole.


Green sunfish and bluegill easily take to pellets, however, it appears that pumpkinseeds are more closely related to the picky red ear.

I have never worked with pumpkinseed, but i have some experience with red ear. In actuality i am working on a feed training youtube video for red ear, lmb and crappie but it wont be ready for at least a couple of weeks.

Some things i would try. Soak the pellets in water so they are soft and more like normal food (snails, bugs, minnows, etc). If you are unable to get the fish to eat from the surface, you can slightly squeeze a soaked pellet to condense it and make it sink. Some pellets will sink when they get really saturated anyway. I would also pick up some freeze dried krill at your petco/petsmart. If the krill are too big to fit in the fish's mouth go ahead and break it up a little. I would place the krill into the tank dry. They are already soft and you are trying to teach the fish to eat at the surface. The first few times you may have to wait for the krill to saturate and sink, but like the blood worms you have been feeding them it was a once alive item and they are more likely to eat it.

some references and more ideas http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.p ... ber=142776

I find it is a lot easier to feed train a young fish 1-2" than an adult fish.


brian

I got hybrid bluegill as 1-2" fingerlings and started them on some flakes from my wife's aquarium. After an arbitrary amount of time I started giving them koi pellets that are about 1/8" diameter. They seem to like them dry, but don't want to go for them once they've swollen, so I'm a little careful how much I feed. No deaths since an initial loss of a few fish when I first got them.

yesterday i got some chichlid pellets, very small. they do not appear to have touched them. or bugs. or blood worms. seems like they would be hungry by now they have been in there since Saturday!

well i found they will at least go after nightcrawlers if i toss them in, seems thats all they want to eat.. i guess im going to dig and buy alot of worms

get some fish food.. bluegill are ok with omnivore diet (35% protein or so)
take some of your feed and put it in a baggie with some water.. i use 1 cup of food and about 1/2 cup water.. put it in the fridge, and turn the bag over a couple of times over 24 hours.. then when you go to feed. you can cut up a worm or two and mix with some of the "wet" pellets,, the pellets will sink if you give them a light squeeze..
gradually mix in a couple dry pellets every time you feed, until your giving the fish just dry pellets
you can "feed train" the fish within a few weeks

this is the part where u have to spend a little time with your fish so they recognize u. instead ofo tossing in a bunch of pellets try jus tossing 1 pellet fish hear and sense things so when theres a disturbance this 1 pellet gets them excited so they investigate then they see there buddy swimmin towards it to then fish peer pressure sets in and 1 fish goes all out for it then ull start to see a difference then increase the pellet delivery. also if u toss fish food in while the fish r sleeping still early in the morning n not yet active it will just sink right past em to the bottom.

my porch is about 8ft from a canal and the bluegill/pumpseeds eat everything including table scraps they also love when i toss in a bucket of bones of fried chicken they love to pick at them. i only use fish feed pellets to check the fishing conditions for the day i had to train these lake fish on pellets to and like above i mentioned is how u do it.

yep i have pellets all over the bottom of the tank, they wont touch them, but i just got meal worms (live) and they are chompin on them so seems they are VERY carnivorous, if it aint wigglin they aint even lookin at it!

they'll come around...eventually

I started some sunnies on goldfish flakes and every slug, worm, grasshopper, and bug I could catch

They now rip into trout pellets with abandon.

yes they want only live things because that's what they identify as food. You are going to have to trick them into trying the pellets eventually, cause live food is going to get expensive.

try not to leave uneaten food in the tank it's going to increase your ammonia as it decomposes. After a certain point they arent going to eat it no matter what.

keith's suggestion about mixing damp pellets with worms is a good suggestion.

keithqueef gave a lot of good suggestions about watching the fish's behavior. It wont take long for them to know that when you walk up to the tank, they are going to get fed. They will start getting excited and be more food aggressive. That's when you start trying to mix in softened pellets with the meal worms or nightcrawlers. They will accidentally try them because they expect it to be a worm and dont wait long enough to visually identify it trying to get to it before the other fish.



It's definitely easier to feed train smaller/younger fish but if you have the patience i think you can do it.

brian

that was 2 days ago i tossed in the night crawlers and a few meal worms, i was going to remove them all this morning so they dont decompose, but they did in fact slowly pick them off, only 2 NC's left, and oddly enough are alive and kicking in the water i guess they can live in a pond so i will leave them until they stop wiggling all over, the fish keep squaring off with them but these 2 are kinda big i think red wigglers would be better. my yard has a billion worms so not too worried about it yet but will take them out if they croak.

they may become dinner, i just met a local guy with 200 blue nile tilapia fingerlings

bring on the good meat!!

Worms can live in your fish tank if you have good dissolved oxygen levels. I have an aquarium in my house that if i sifted through the sand would probably find some life red wigglers from 9 months ago.

Keep in mind your system is outdoors and you are going to need a plan when it starts getting colder.

Depending on what he means by fingerlings it may be difficult to crow them out to plate size before it gets too cold. They will not survive your winters and they will probably stop eating when your water temps get into the low 60's


brian