Love these guys!
Here are my three (cohabiting with 5 channa pleurophtalma) in a video taken 8 months ago. Everybody is much bigger now...
You should take an updated video! Would love to see it
OP sorry I can't be of any help really on the food side, I've been lucky with mine. I dont think he took pellets right away but I was feeding lots of bloodworms and eventually he started going for pellets too.