Canyoncreek, RES do like Optimal better than other types of fish food and they also prefer it hydrated rather than dry. I suspect the parents of the ones I am feed training are also proven pellet eaters.

When I started a few weeks ago I initially fed them blood worms along with hydrated Optimal crumbles that I had run through a coffee bean grinder. RES love blood worms and the idea was to get them accustomed to me hand feeding them and to get them started eating Optimal and the plan has worked. When I walk into the shop now they come to the surface and right over to the side of the tank where I am standing wanting to get fed. From there I dialed back on the blood worms and increased the hydrated Optimal feeding quite a bit. Right now I am working on feeding them dry optimal crumbles with a automatic feeder during the day while I am gone and a number of them are now eating that as well. I do have a small number of very small RES that have not feed trained yet but hopefully they will come around.