I just pour food out of the bag or jar or whatever, but I've seen some posts and articles saying this can cause problems, I think with the swim bladder. The last one I came across almost sounded like it would suffice to soak them and let them dry?
Ditto bayopour... I use Top Fin wafers and never pre-soak... I just throw 5 in there every other day, they sink to the bottom, shark and pleco mow down on them and they're gone the next morning...
I heard a talk by Steve Lundblad who breeds peacock cichlids give a warning against these. I had this confirmed when I accidently dumped too many pellets into a goldfish tank. It was understocked so I figured they would clean them up; well they did and both of them were dead in the morning with their guts swelled up.
I still use them but I make sure not to overfeed and I believe this is where other folks may run into problems that leads to the soaking recommedation. If you soak them, they expand outside the fish instead of inside. This may also have something to do with the fact that they float-air inside the pellet gets trapped in the gut and cannot be expelled perhaps.
No, I do not presoak my pellets which go to my Goldfish...
...personally, I tend to believe there's more to it if your fish winds up belly up as its not as easy as one would think to just get Swim Bladder Disorder "out of the blue".
I presoak pellets, particularly for tanks with a large population of fish. I've found that some fish will eat too much and wind up with problems like bloat if I feed dry.
One solution is to feed more sparingly, but if you do that in an overcrowded tank, only the most aggressive fish ever get any food.
On less heavily stocked tanks (most of mine), I don't presoak.
I pre soak pellets with garlic and other stuff on occasion at home but allways with the africans at work.
Top feeders may not be as sensitive to this as say your algea grazing african cichlids.