Hi Cyamus,
Thank you for that update. I love happy endings.
The recent fungal infection coupled with the fridging will definitely leave a dent on your axie's appetite.
I find that offering live food is actually better. Firstly the wriggly motion of live food is actually an appetite stimulant, furthermore, live food can live for a period before dying and going off. This is an advantage over pellets.
If you could get your hands on live blackworms and bloodworms, give those a go first. Because they are more 'bite sized', they are more easily consumed. They tend to all clump together in a tangled heap so its easy to be 'gulped' in and easy to siphon out as well. Earthworms are fine as well but perhaps choose the smaller ones or chop up bigger ones. A colossal earthworm will not do too well with the slower rate of digestion.
What i sometimes do is to blend up a mix of food in a food processor to create a 'mash'. You can add in earthworms, bloodworms, blackworms, moistened axie pellets, bits of shrimp and deboned fish meat, bits of beef heart etc. This mash will be kind of mushy but doughy in texture. I would then roll them into pea sized portions and offer to the axie. With my axies, it tends to work quite well. The food particles are already pulverised into tiny bits and so it facilitates digestion (more suface area for enzymes), the composition is nutritious, the mash can be easily stored, and the smell it emits tend to draw axies to them, furthermore, the best bit is that the mash (if you do it correctly) will retain the shape so will not create a mess.
Give the methods and try and see how it goes.
Cheers.