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LM Bass feeding recommendations please

Started by Guest_Moonbat_* , Jan 25 2010 10:47 PM

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16 replies to this topic

#1 Guest_Moonbat_*

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Posted 25 January 2010 - 10:47 PM

Greetings all. I'm new to the forums and will give a short description of my situation. I am a fisherman and caught a 4 inch baby bass that was in bad condition (covered in fungus and malnurished). I decided to take it home and care for it. I now have a 55 gallon tank with a wet/dry integrated filter in mid to early cycling. Fish is in a temp. setup for now. This will be the only fish, besides a small plec his size, to be introduced to tank. I am not going to add other fish in future.
I recently read feeder goldfish have very low nutrient value to them so his diet is now solely night crawler worms from bait shop. The fish I think is blocked up a bit in digestion due to lack of fiber in his diet.
I wish I could get him away from the live food but hear it's extremely difficult to train a bass in that way. I'm doing the best I can for the fish within the limitations i have. I rescued fish from an almost certain death so I consider it a reasonable acception to the laws. I also will not be releasing it into wild again being I understand the detriment of potential contamination.
So I write this in somewhat desperation being I am now responsible for the fish and plan to do my best to care for it. This is why I sought out this forum hoping a bass expert or knowledgeable folks can help me to get things going smoothly. Thanks in advance for any helpful advice you can give especially on a well balanced diet for the bass.

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#2 Guest_smithcreekfishfarm_*

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Posted 26 January 2010 - 09:39 AM

Greetings all. I'm new to the forums and will give a short description of my situation. I am a fisherman and caught a 4 inch baby bass that was in bad condition (covered in fungus and malnurished). I decided to take it home and care for it. I now have a 55 gallon tank with a wet/dry integrated filter in mid to early cycling. Fish is in a temp. setup for now. This will be the only fish, besides a small plec his size, to be introduced to tank. I am not going to add other fish in future.
I recently read feeder goldfish have very low nutrient value to them so his diet is now solely night crawler worms from bait shop. The fish I think is blocked up a bit in digestion due to lack of fiber in his diet.
I wish I could get him away from the live food but hear it's extremely difficult to train a bass in that way. I'm doing the best I can for the fish within the limitations i have. I rescued fish from an almost certain death so I consider it a reasonable acception to the laws. I also will not be releasing it into wild again being I understand the detriment of potential contamination.
So I write this in somewhat desperation being I am now responsible for the fish and plan to do my best to care for it. This is why I sought out this forum hoping a bass expert or knowledgeable folks can help me to get things going smoothly. Thanks in advance for any helpful advice you can give especially on a well balanced diet for the bass.

I own Smith Creek Fish Farm and feed train my own LMB that I hatch here. Here are some techniques that I have used.

Some of these ideas may not be possible for your situation. When I feed train my fry I notice they learn from each other, so if you have a compatible feed trained fish to add to the aquarium it may help. Temperature also is a factor. If you can safely raise the temp to 80F the LMB will get more aggressive with its feeding. See if you can find a floating pellet with, at least, 40% protein and 10% fat. Soak the pellets for a few minutes in salt water. Feed a piece of worm and when he/she starts looking for the next one toss a pellet close to the LMB and you should get a reaction and hopefuly it will swallow the pellet. LMB are tough to feed train once they get larger but it is possible. You can also try larger flakes because they sink slowly and sway as they move. If you can get that LMB aggressive enough it should take a shot at anything swallowing it is another thing all together that is where the salt(blood is salty) and high quality food come in.
Good Luck,
Todd, www.smithcreekfishfarm.com

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#3 Guest_RD911_*

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Posted 26 January 2010 - 12:01 PM

Some sound advice from Todd, but personally I would skip the salt, and soak the pellets in the juices of krill,tuna, or blood worms. Tuna has been used with success by some of the old time discus importers (such as Jack Wattley)when attempting to get their wild imports to eat, and the scent & taste of krill and/or blood worms should get a feed response by even the pickiest of fish.

Good luck.

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#4 Guest_Moonbat_*

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Posted 26 January 2010 - 03:47 PM

Thanks to both of you for the good info. Last night I did some research on food and found this substance called dr. foster and smith's gel food.
It's a powder you mix up and boil then refrigerate into any type of shape. If I could find a plastic worm mold I wonder if it would wiggle enough to simulate hand feeding bass night crawlers at tank surface. Thanks again.

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#5 Guest_RD911_*

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Posted 26 January 2010 - 05:43 PM

Personally I wouldn't waste my time with the gel food, there are stick foods that are worm like in shape that would work just as well, with far less hassle & mess. At 4" it shouldn't be overly difficult to train your fish to accept pellets, if they are pre-soaked with something that triggers a feed response, such as krill, tuna, blood worms, etc.

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#6 Guest_smbass_*

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Posted 26 January 2010 - 07:50 PM

I agree with others that it should not be difficult to get a bass of that size switched over to pellets. Just getting it used to you as the source of food and then pull the switch when it is ready to strike. it may take some time but this should work.

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#7 Guest_jase_*

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Posted 27 January 2010 - 02:58 PM

In my experience, LMB and other sunfish respond really well to mealworms. I'd imagine that the diet of a LMB the size you have includes quite a lot of insects, so it's a pretty natural food. Mealworms are stocked at most pet shops, and are quite easy (though not fast) to culture yourself. They're also available for pretty reasonable prices from http://www.grubco.com/. Fish really enjoyed the fly larvae I bought from there, too.

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#8 Guest_RD911_*

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Posted 27 January 2010 - 04:41 PM

Feeding a fish meal worms, is like waving a crack pipe in front of a junkies face. Once they begin, you will have 10X the difficulty getting them to eat other non live food stuffs, especially a pellet food. Meal wortms supply a decent amount of amino & fatty acids to a fish, but are void in many other essential nutrients, especially calcium. You can get around that to a degree by gut loading them & feeding immediately to your fish, but once you do there will be no turning back with regards to pellet training.

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#9 Guest_smbass_*

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Posted 28 January 2010 - 09:26 PM

This is a very good point, once sunfish of any kind have a steady diet of live feeds they become rather reluctant to eat pellets, even if they have been eating them well previously. I have to retrain many of my adult fish when I bring them indoors in the fall after a summer in my outdoor breeding ponds.

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#10 Guest_jase_*

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Posted 29 January 2010 - 12:28 AM

I agree that it will make your life easier if you can get the bass on pellets. If he's not yet in good health, though, it might be a good idea to continue with live foods until he has fully recovered.

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#11 Guest_Moonbat_*

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Posted 01 February 2010 - 05:16 AM

Thanks for the replies. The bass is healthy now it seems although it has become used to me feeding it half a worm at a time. It didn't take a cricket i put in. It mouthed it and that was it and after will not even try to eat them. I should ask how much or often should I feed it. It will eat minnows from store like crazy to point of bloated look. Worms it really likes now that I switched him to that. I tried a recently expired minnow and he rejected it. It's almost like he knows already what he wants. (his natural diet was shad in the lake i caught him in i presume)
Another question I have is will the bug type of foods be an issue with them being alive in bass and able to chew the stomach lining.

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#12 Guest_dsaavedra_*

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Posted 01 February 2010 - 08:20 PM

no the bugs get crushed as the bass swallows.

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#13 Guest_Moonbat_*

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Posted 14 February 2010 - 01:17 AM

I'm going to go with the pellet method described earlier in replies. I need to know what size pellet and a brand too please if any could provide info on it. Is it ok to not feed the bass for a day to make him more hungry? He destroyed last heater I put in tank so lives in water around 72 degrees.

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#14 Guest_I31_*

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Posted 25 February 2010 - 10:13 AM

Try the "sticks" as opposed to pellets. Silversides,freezed dried krill and smelt are what I've seen them take too

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#15 Guest_dsaavedra_*

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Posted 02 March 2010 - 04:08 PM

Hikari makes quality pellets, size depends on the size of your fish, just move up the line as your fish grows. once you train him on one type of pellet (hikari cichlid gold or hikari cichlid staple for example)it may be reluctant to take other type of pellets. your fish can go several days (probably close to two weeks) without food, its actually healthy to not feed it once or twice a week to let its digestive system catch up. so it will be fine if it doesn't eat while pellet training. room temp is plenty fine for largemouth.

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#16 Guest_bjbass_*

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Posted 14 May 2010 - 09:50 PM

What is the best way to treat bait fish that are caught in the wild to feed to your bass? I have read that they should quarantined with medicine for a few days. What medicine?

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#17 Guest_forevercat_*

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Posted 10 July 2012 - 01:21 AM

i too have had a similar situation: i was given a small sick LMB by a friend, and it was around 3.5". it would only take feeder guppies and redworms when i got it; but i got it pellet trained. just like smithcreekfishfarm said; put it's favorite food and as it starts feeding throw in a couple pellets. if you spoil it with meal worms and live foods constantly, it will become increasingly hard to pellet train it in the future.