How to feed seems to depend on the individual fish, I tried feeding a mix of small koi pellets and ground up sturgeon pellets, but my paddlefish didn't seem to take the koi pellets so now I just feed it ground up sturgeon food. It seems to stick to the middle of the pond mostly, sometimes I have a heron over but it can't stand in that deep part of the pond so the Paddlefish seems to be safe.