Some general advice with a few tricks that have worked for me.
Use crickets for only a few days to a week at most, get the fish eating small cut up pieces of market prawn or pellets as soon as possible. I personally like prawn since there is a lot of protein in it which helps the fish grow fast. Make sure the prawn you buy is uncooked and has shell on; I have heard that shell-off prawn has a high salt content. If your fish accepts pellets like Hikari arosticks (broken in half), then consider sticking with that. An aro on pellets is great to have in the long run. The problem is that few aros take to pellets consistently for long. If you do go the prawn route, once it is eating it regularly and has grown an inch or two, you can try stuffing a bit of pellet into the prawn and add to its food value that way. It may or may not swallow the pellets this way, but it is worth a try.
A completely different way to go about feeding your aro is to do the above, but then get it eating superworm/kingworm. You can gut-load the worms with high quality pellets or carrots. I learned a trick of buying 1000 at a time, gut loading them, then freezing them. As they freeze, the worms poop, which removes that bit of waste. Then you just take a few super worms out of the freezer a few times a day, quickly let thaw, and feed them to your aro. Some people argue that the aro can get protruding anus due to a SW only diet. Also, some aros get totally hooked on them and stop eating prawn/pellet. Lastly, working with the live SW is a bit gross/smelly, so you may not be keen. If your aro turns out to be a totally picky eater, you may have no choice but to go the SW route. It can become a battle of the wills with some fish. On occasion I feed my aros live earth worms too. I never use feeders, however, unless I have a few fry to cull.
As for tank colour, I always go with black or dark blue. Lower light, not high output. White tank treatment will give your fish a different look for sure, so you could choose that route too.
Finally, just keep the water parameters good and the water warm (I keep it Ph of 6.8, temp at 29-30) with a tablespoon of aquarium salt per ten gallons. Also, make sure the tank always allows for a proper turning radius of the fish as it grows larger (to avoid gill curl), and consider using some internal powerheads to add a directional current for the fish to swim against. Watch that lid, remember these guys are jumpers! I think that covers the basics for any "tricks" I know (really just basics I think).
Given your enthusiasm, I am sure you will end up with a beautiful fish.
