I have WIGGLERS!

I'm kinda shocked. First thing I saw yesterday morning when I went downstairs- the parents were not by their leaf. A lot of the eggs were fungal- horrid mass of white fuzz. Then I saw the angels were hovering near another anubias center of the tank (tetras all keeping to a top corner of the water column, in a much tighter group than before).

The parents had moved the good eggs to this new leaf- only they aren't eggs anymore, they're wiggling around and I can just see eye dots and tiny tails. There's about fifty of them (so originally must have been two hundred or more is my guess). Wow.

Here's the male. I hadn't realized how rich his colors had gotten.

Female was often under the foliage searching around- and I saw a lot of the wigglers sliding down, hanging off the bottom edge of the leaf, so maybe she was trying to find and replace those that fell.

I'm rather surprised they got so far in spite of it being their first time. I really thought they were just going to eat the eggs! but now they are taking such good care. Maybe it will end here- I don't have any fry food- just some gold pearls- maybe I could crush those into a powder? I have frozen food with daphnia in it, and I'm wondering if the fry might find enough to eat on biofilm in the tank, until they're large enough to take the gold pearls or pulverized flake. But I know from reading, infusoria or live food like brine shrimp, micro worms is really best...

The male is very aggravated by my tetras now. He's driving them around the tank constantly. I think their job as dither fish is done haha. Hope the parents feel more relaxed when they're gone. I moved them into my 20 with the shrimps yesterday- if the parents start acting freaked out by foot traffic again, I can always put them back. Maybe they gave the male a job to do, something to protect against. But I feel pretty sure they would eat the fry.

It was difficult to net out the tetras- I didn't want to cause too much chaos but surprisingly, my angelfish were not upset at the disruption. I tried to do the job carefully- using my largest net and an acrylic stick to gently drive the tetras toward the net- but of course as their numbers got fewer they started to panic. However the angels stayed calm the whole time. They cruised around near their leaf and watched- they knew I was after those tetras. I almost though the male was going to start helping me corral the tetras into the net himself. Did they realize I was helping them out, removing the other fish? Once I was following a tetra with the acrylic prod, the stick passed just a few centimeters from M. Beautiful and she didn't flinch at all.

Likewise this morning- things much calmer in the angel tank- I saw a few large pieces of fish poop on anubias leaf near the wigglers. I used my long acrylic tube to siphon it out- right next to the wiggler's leaf, but the angel didn't flee or attack the tool, just stayed nearby and watched. They didn't freak out or go pale when I cleaned the tank yesterday, either, nor attack the siphon as I half expected. I kept it further from the wiggler's spot to avoid disturbing them, cut off and removed the old leaf that had the moldy eggs on it. You can see how many they lost:

This morning they've moved the wigglers again- whose tails look larger, the yolk sacs smaller.

I keep telling myself I'm not going to go to great lengths to raise these fry- daily water changes, culturing infusoria- just let nature happen- but then I find myself wanting to help the angels in their effort. There's just something enthralling watching how their demeanor has changed.They are so focused.

Can you see in that pic, the tip of the female's dorsal is turned white. I don't know if she's got a mild case of fin rot, or can stress cause that. Her tail is starting to look neatly healed, but now this. Nitrates were just over 5ppm when I did this weekly water change. Frogbit is melting away again- not happy in this tank. Most of my vallisneria have died, too- there's only five left. But as you can see in some of the above pics, my crypt wendtii has responded well to moving in here- it's perked up a lot, color is good and altho a few older leaves melted off, new ones are already unfurling.