I can tell you from experience fish will eat more than they need:
Ok. Mr. Cecil, sir.
I am not trying to start a pissing contest with anyone here. You're all pretty good fellers and very helpful. But I would like to continue the debate, and hope no one gets mad.
So here is my experience with CNBG, and largemouth bass.
My water is cold. Below 55 degrees. Most late evenings, I can go out there and watch to see what my fish are doing. I have a zillion minnows in this pond. I have schools of fatheads by the thousands........and the native minnow. The native minnows do not get as large as the fatheads. But they are in there by the tens of thousands.
Just about every afternoon, the CNBG are just tearing up the native minnows. You can watch them jumping out of the water trying to get away....then the bass come in....and start picking off smaller CNBG and Minnows. I have watched this numerous times.
My fish most certainly have more than they can eat. None of them have died. All they have done is grow. It's not like I have any way to cut off their feeding as Mr. Snrub has suggested. Now on the other hand, I can stop feeding high protein pellets, but that is in no way going to stop the fish from feeding on other critters that are also high in protein.
I do not know what happened to that dead fish that you posted. But this I can tell you with 100% accuracy. For fish to grow, they have to eat. And they will. Whether you stop feeding them or not......if they have a forage base, they ARE going to eat. Sure.....that does slow down given certain temperatures. But feeding tendencies do not.....and will not, stop.
Here's the other thing about digestion and metabolism.
Just because it gets cold, a fish does not lose its digestive abilities. The necessary bodily fluids are still there and they still break down consumed forage the exact same way. That is not what changes when the water gets cold. It doesn't change.
What changes is the fish become inactive as temperatures drop, burning far less calories due to inactivity. In turn it requires far less forage/calories to maintain its weight, or even add weight.
In short , if a fish is going to eat itself to death, and you have a forage base that allows for it. Then you can't stop it.
Unlike Mr. Snrub, I intend to continue to feed, until they stop feeding.
How's that for dedication to growth rates of my fish?
