how much should a bass eat?

[Superbass]

ive had some smb since they were about 1" to 1.5". ive provided for them as best as i could for about 9months and are approx 6-7". they seem to have this voracious appetite. ive tried to think ahead of their growth each time but never a step ahead. what and how much do u feed your bass/monsters and how much vs size(daily? weekly?) do you breed your own food? i am currently feeding them feeder minnows and goldfish roughly 4-6 small gfs every second day per fish, or close to a dozen fish every second day. is that too much? when i first got them i thought id breed guppies, by the time i got the guppy pop. to a reasonable size they were well past that... i decided to try to minnows but i think they are way past those tiny feeder minnows, and ive failed on the worm farm so far lol. im thinking i should start looking up to breeding mice soon. i think a good tip for beginners would be establish a farm to feed them first.

btw new to mfk and like the info ive seen.

 

[warmouth]

I would first try to convert my fish to eating frozen Shrimp and fish and then pellets. Goldfish are bad for them to eat in large quatities due to Thiamine; if you want to supplement their diet with live food get a 20g long and install breeder or baby netting breeders in it and breed mosquito fish, they are bigger and breed almost as much as a guppy and will eat flake food and freeze dried food meant for Bettas, you could also breed large Scuds and Earthworms as a treat a couple of times a week and to vary their diet.

 

[Superbass]

converting them id have to starve them for a while i guess. do you have a link for this thiamine and goldfish problem? thiamine is vit.b1 which all organisms use, deficiency of thiamine usually causes problems. I'll have to just vary their diets but they get so picky. i had them on pellets when they were younger... then they stopped eating them and didnt seem active, so i switched to live food and they were all happy. when i first fed them(1-1.5") it was mosquito larvae (just leave a container of water with leaves sticks and a bit of dirt in it) and frozen bloodworms. I then got them on pellets , but that didnt last that long as they just refused to eat it after a few weeks. i planned on feeding them crayfish as well, but after 9months of semi-trying to breed them i havent seen one preggy/berrying. thanks for the reply and i hope to hear more suggestions.

 

[JIM]

here is a pretty decent article, how much of that natural diet can you supply???

http://www.fishwagon.com/Fish_Wagon/Largemouth_Bass.html

 

[Superbass]

jim - ty for the link, gave me more ideas of what they can eat as well as helpful information.

warmouth - ty for mentioning thiamin, i did some research and its actually thiaminase (the "ase" means its an enzyme which breaks down thiamin) i found this page (http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_6/volume_6_1/thiaminase.htm) which contains a list of some fish that have and dont have thiamin.