I got mine at about 3" and they were feed trained with specialty feed. Think of a mad scientist RES lover that used to be on this board a lot. When I stocked them they pretty much went off feed for a year as I was trying to feed them with Aquamax. They didn't take to that at all so I quit feeding. Then I read about Optimal. The RES took to that pretty quickly. But what really seemed to be the kicker was when I mixed in some Optimal Jr in the middle of this summer. At that point it seemed all classes of RES in my pond began feeding well. So yes, my RES were somewhat genetically predisposed to be fish that take feed. But I also believe the Optimal has played a big role in subsequent generations feed training.
