Thanks for doing the work, jpsdad! We so often overlook past research because it happened years ago, a sort of chronological snobbery that fallaciously assumes recency equals quality. Well done.

It will take several more readings for me to "assimilate" all the data, but one immediate conclusion is that artificial fish food, even with good levels of fish meal, is not a perfect substitute for the real thing, at least for LMB. Valuable supplement, but not a replacement if growth is to be maximized. The fishy food chain must be maintained! I do wonder if similar conclusions would be true of BG, HSB, and RBT.

But what about the calories expended to catch the prey, such as GAMs? Floating pellets don't require much effort to consume, which I always thought was a big advantage.