Dude...I would try to feed it market shrimp, but it would act like it was going for it, but then he would turn around or he would "taste" it and then drop it.
Well...It's finally excepting frozen market shrimp from my hand. It tries to eat the hose when I'm cleaning it's tank. He actually got the hose in it's mouth...I was afriad it was going to have it's guts suck out when I saw it do that.
As for growth...it's already 8" and I haven't measured it since I got it then.