I've always been a fan of hand feeding, as well...ONLY with certain species. And, a Tess is something I would certainly NOT hand feed. I hand fed my adult Hawaiian Dragon, no problems. The Whitemouth Moray, that shared the tank with her, I would not hand feed.
Food items should be whole foods...fish fillet (grouper, snapper and the occasional salmon), squid, octo, and whole shrimp. They're not cheap to feed. All of those items can be found at local fish markets or whole foods stores. Everything that is fed should be wild caught...you should never feed farm raised, due to the preservatives added, for human consumption.
Provide enough rock work and places to hide and most of the time (I stress most of the time), they will not try to escape, but you'd be surprised at how strong and powerful even a 2' Tesselata is.
Tank mates are another issue...or should I say lack of tankmates. Anything and everything (fish, as well as invert) will be taken as prey, by a Tess (the majority of the time). The larger it gets, the less likely it is to allow anything else in it's territory. Even fish that you think are large enough, there'd be no way for a Tess to take it, it will. And, if it can't swallow whole, it'll attack and rip apart and then eat.
In the wild and some public aquarium species I've worked with, you're looking at potentially 8' - 10'. In captivity, I'd say a max of around 5' - 6'. Hopefully, by purchasing this guy, you've commited yourself to have the resources of being able to provide a 400 - 500 gallon aquarium.
