Cacatuoides fry in community tank

[mordor]

It looks September was my lucky month, first A. sp. 'Cara Pintada' spawned then I got double spawn of A. cacatuoides in my main tank. I really happy to observe how different parental behavior can be. It looks that cacs are far more aggressive parrents and males participating much more in guarding babies. I believe it's partially because of environment conditions, community tank is crowded with other apistos, tetras, cories and plecos while carapintadas have one species tank. I guess second female lost her eggs because of unfortunate placement, large cave easily accessed by plecos. Second female was hidden under piece of coconut shell with entrance too small for male and plecos. I observed yesterday first trip of babies outside the cave. Male was simply furious, he was attacking any fish which come to front of the tank. Female was pretty brave too. First time I have seen female bitting into plecos tail. She simply grabbed its tail and was shaking all body trying to detach a piece. It looked like David and Goliath fight Male, 3 times bigger, was much more effective. First of all he was trying to target unscaled areas of catfish body. This way pleco really felt something and was easily scared off. It was simply incredible to watch this.