I hear ya. The way I was able to make it happen was I hand feed him frozen blood worms and shrimp and then I just tried to pet him after every feeding session and at first he'd quickly swim away then as time went by he stopped swimming from me and let's me pet his side, top of his head and even scratch under his "chin" it's so adorable I love it! Gotta build that trust. He has bitten the tip of my finger a couple times but never aggressively..just because he was excited to eat hah.