2nd Chance for Frank & Agnes?

The more I think about it, the more I imagine that the last batch of angel fry simply starved, rather than having been eaten by Ma and Pa. I got in touch with the former owner of my angel pair, and he said that he would be surprised if they ate the babies, but not at all surprised if they starved. It is sometimes hard to get them to eat, and live BBS ought to stimulate them to feed - I realize now that I ought to have taken the advice of other angel breeders and used that to start with, but I thought I could get away with a prepared fry food product. Laziness!

Now I imagine that I might let this current batch of wigglers remain in situ with their parents and hatch out BBS to see what happens. I never actually witnessed any fry-eating going on, but simply assumed it had happened, since many angels do this, with eggs or with newly hatched fry. Ryan states, however, that Agnes and Frank have kept several batches of babies in the tank with them in the past, and have not eaten babies, though they will eat the eggs and abort a spawning if the tank has become full of juvies. I certainly can put bigger juvies in the 37 gallon once they are past the "fry" stage so the cycle can continue. The tank is sitting there running with some very large apple snails in residence, and I guess I can resist the temptation to stock the tank - I will need the space if I am to be raising angels for sale to the LFS. It might sit empty for a month or so, which will be hard to ignore!

OR..... I could let the fry grow out in the 40g and move Frank & Agnes to the 37. They will be a lot easier to move than babies will, and they can tolerate it easier than delicate fry. This was the suggestion of Ryan, the previous owner of these fish. I appreciate his input, and he is glad to remain involved, I think! It is certainly helpful to me in learning how to manage their spawns the simplest way possible. I'm not up for a great deal of fuss, though I would certainly like to see this work out.