tiny fries

I can't help obsessively keeping tabs on my few angelfish fry- even more so than when I had a baby cory in my ten gallon! Yesterday I thought the mother had eaten one- I was feeding the parents some flake, M Beautiful came up front and when she opened her mouth to eat, a baby she'd been holding tumbled out. It was kinda funny. She grabbed the flake, then saw and grabbed the baby, then took more flakes. I didn't know if she could keep them sorted in her mouth, and only swallow the flake? She then went down behind the anubias plants where they're more or less keeping the fry herded now. I counted ten fry this morning, so I guess that one is still alive.

The fry poke around low among the leaf litter in the rear of the tank. I do see them biting at stuff in the water. It's like when I had the cherry barb fry- can't see the tiny fish mouth, but I can see the movement of it, weird. One fry keeps scooting around on the tank floor- I'm not sure if this one is a "belly slider" or if it's just looking for food there. When a parent retrieves it and puts it back among the others, it eventually swims down there again.

I'm not yet alarmed that soft brown algae is showing up on anubias leaves. There are enough days with cloudy mornings it seems to keep it from getting too bad, so far. Nerites are often on the front glass, so that is clean. Angels bite at them, though. Crypts and buces look fantastic, my wendtii bronze has beautiful color. But the windelov fern is faltering and the java fern looks awful. I'm thinking of tossing all the java fern and putting more crypts in here, since they seem so happy. Might even tie some crypts on the driftwood anchors I had the java fern on. I haven't seen many people do this, but I read suggestion in a few places that some crypts can cling to hardscape just like anubias- wonder if it would work.

I'm feeling really motivated to do the necessary daily water changes to help these fry grow- I want to see if they turn out nice shape, or have the father's bent fin. But- won't that hurt my plants, to have the water column so lean of nutrients. Probably another reason the java fern is doing badly.