I just got 5 2.5 inch archers on Thursday. been wanting some FWs for a LONG time.
They were being fed freeze dried bloodworms, but are thin and really need more nutrition.
(They ignored plain hikari sticks)
I already got them eating pellets yesterday morning, this is how:
Recipe:
Thawed and mash frozen bloodworms.
Soak Hikari floating carni sticks in that for a couple minutes. when soft enough to not crunch when cutting, slice sticks in 4 pieces.
Soak just a couple more minutes to saturate pieces in the "gravy".
Toss it in.
First they eat the worm fragments. but they figured out quick that the pellets (moving around water surface) taste good too, and started going at those, pigging out. The smaller/ meeker ones wait until the bold guys are full before they go after the pellets. It looks like there's a hierarchy in place, but without any show of aggression in group.
Freeze dried blackworms are a good option for quick meals. I'm going to send for some from the mfk vendor: Blackworms Direct. they're more nutritious than FD bloodworms.
I haven't tried nls pellets yet. but I know pellets have to be floating to get their attention.
It seemed to help trigger my archers onto pellets, having other fish in their QT tank from same shipment. the baby sevs went nuts for the floaters and those archers really noticed that and became competitive. it's neat, they "strike" at pellets on surface.
Nice thing about carni sticks are, if anything is uneaten they're easy to net out of tank to keep clean. but I haven't had ANY leftovers in there yet.
I also reduce the rate of filter output & intake during feeding.
Sort of camera shy, so pics are a little blurry. Also, still trying to get rid of that filter and figure out a background. blegh. 
