I stocked Mr H's part of the fish order into his pond, but I haven't added any fish to my pond yet. I have the remaining fish in an aquarium. It's a little crowded, but the fish are eating very aggressively. I've given them mosquito larvae and they go crazy for them.

One problem is that I'm sure there are some WM mixed in and they're so small that identifying them is difficult. I'm considering putting them into a floating cage and raising them to a larger size where I can ID them better.

That made me think about feed training the RES. On one hand my goal with this pond could be the biggest RES as soon as possible which seems to indicate feeding. OTOH this might add an additional factor that takes away from our understanding of the relationship between the FH and the RES.

Please comment if you have a preference for feed trained RES for this test or not.

I'll start looking into cage design for something quick and cheap. The fish are in only 10 gallons of water now, but they seem to be in decent health. I've got strong aeration in the tank and I'll do frequent water changes until I get them settled.