Aquaculture ponds are commonly supplied manufactured feeds to enhance fish growth and survival above levels supported by ambient live prey (Lovell, 1989). The first foods ingested by larval fish in freshwater ponds are typically rotifers, copepod nauplii, and small cladocerans, followed by insect larvae when mouth gape size and digestive development allow(Qin et al., 1995). Fish can usually beweaned to partial or complete diets of dry feed during the juvenile life stage, although some species can be wholly weaned as larvae in tank systems with no alternate prey (Kolkovski, 2001; Lazo et al., 2011). To avoid wasteful feed use in ponds with dynamic live prey communities, managers must identify the timing of voluntary feed inclusion in fish diets and weigh the positive effects of feeding on fish growth and survival against its negative effects on water quality (Filbrun et al., 2013).