I specifically picked white crappie for my pond because I was going to try to have them exclusively feed on fatheads and not need to rely on zooplankton resources. It seems like there could be some merit in having a cheap easily available protein source like pellets "leapfrog" into a white crappie population. In a small pond with more natural feeding patterns, in this case zooplankton, I would always choose black crappie.

Holding a redear sunfish is like running with scissors.