My bluegill is eating pellets!

Hooray! My bluegill has been brought over from the dark side! He will eat Hikari Cichlid Gold now, along with the green sunnie and the yellow bullhead. The pumpkinseed and yellow perch and rock bass still need convincing. Still, victory!

Its strange I guess but my gills took anything I put in the tank within a day or so of introduction. I started with flakes since they would move with the current but they've had no problem taking pellets or krill. In the wild they're pretty similar, they check everything that hits the water whether its a leaf, bread, spit, or ash from a cigarette.

Its strange I guess but my gills took anything I put in the tank within a day or so of introduction. I started with flakes since they would move with the current but they've had no problem taking pellets or krill. In the wild they're pretty similar, they check everything that hits the water whether its a leaf, bread, spit, or ash from a cigarette.

Maybe it depends on how much competition they have or how deprived they are in their original environment? I know fish producers feed train fish by crowding them and depriving them of all other potential food.

On another note my original broodstock bluegills from Nebraska came from a stock that were selectively bred for fast growth for I believe it was 9 years. I think aggressiveness at feeding time and faster growth went hand in hand as those fish would actually bite at the floating cage to get at the pellets. I could actually hear them biting the plastic and they were only 4 to 5 inches long.

Edited by az9, 02 December 2009 - 07:33 PM.

Maybe it depends on how much competition they have or how deprived they are in their original environment? I know fish producers feed train fish by crowding them and depriving them of all other potential food.

On another note my original broodstock bluegills from Nebraska came from a stock that were selectively bred for fast growth for I believe it was 9 years. I think aggressiveness at feeding time and faster growth went hand in hand as those fish would actually bite at the floating cage to get at the pellets. I could actually hear them biting the plastic and they were only 4 to 5 inches long.

Wow, mine will jump after my fingers when I drop the pellets in. But he also just ate some fathead minnows, so another first for him.

Hooray! My bluegill has been brought over from the dark side! He will eat Hikari Cichlid Gold now, along with the green sunnie and the yellow bullhead. The pumpkinseed and yellow perch and rock bass still need convincing. Still, victory!

I have rockbass that have been raised from eggs in an aquarium and they still dont consume pellets to the point I would prefer, they will probably be the most difficult to transition to a pellet. If you can get to the point where they rise to the top during feeding time your half way there, don't feel bad removing life or frozen feeds for a while. Fish got to eat, they will figure it out..

my sunfish all eat pellets any kind. bluegill,OS sunfish,greensunfish, but the rockbass and pickerel have only eat pellets a few times.

yup told you it was only a matter of time before the sunfish would start eating pellets. now that some are on them, the rest will follow soon.

yup told you it was only a matter of time before the sunfish would start eating pellets. now that some are on them, the rest will follow soon.

The pumpkinseed is the only Lepomis I have that won't eat them, the green (probably due to the fact he has been in my tank since I found him and some now deceased relatives as tiny YOY in the feeder tank at Petco) will eat flakes, pellets, sticks, anything that I throw in, live or dead, preapared or fresh. I starved them out once before but I broke down when the yellow perch kept chasing me so desperatley around when I passed the tank, and it tugged at my heartstrings enough to buy twenty minnows and some super mealworms and earthworms. He in manipulative!

Edited by catfish_hunter, 05 December 2009 - 01:00 AM.

I never really had a problem with sunfish taking prepared foods, the ones i had took FD krill right off the bat. Now my pickerel was a different story, he would only take live no matter what technique i tryed, then i tryed starving him for 2 1/2 weeks, 1st took raw shrimp but only took one peice, then after another week I was using a suction bulb to get a few things off the bottom and he struck the end of the bulb, so it dawned on me to put a small pellet in there and shoot it out in front of him. He took the 1st pellet that came out and has been eating 20-30 pellets a day. im still working on getting him to hit em at top like every1 else.

Nice job!!! I tried getting my lmb on pellets but I gave up the battle.
The next fish will be getting pellets.