Apisto female post egg laying behavior questions

[kubrich]

Last night my female apisto just laid her eggs. She laid her eggs in her usual spot under the drift wood with java fern.When i saw her turn yellow,i sort of figured that she would have laid them there. So what i did was tilt the driftwood so that the male apisto could reach them because previously the gap to the eggs was too small for the male and i suspect that they were not fertilized. Was what i did wrong? How can i tell if the eggs have been fertilized? Is there a change in behavior in the female if the eggs have been fertilized? I noticed that last night she was extremely yellow, to the point that her lateral band could not be seen. She also frequently swam up to the male, lashed her tail at him and turn her belly to face him and swam towards the eggs. Today there is a slight change in her coloration and behavior. She is still yellow but not as yellow as last night, her lateral band can clearly be seen now. She frequently patrols the area around the eggs. When the male fish swims close, she would swim up to him and lash her tail and swim back the area of her eggs. Sometimes she would chase him away after lashing her tail at him. Could this be a sign that the eggs have been fertilized? The female has spawned a few times so far but not once have i been able to see fry. The most i've seen is wrigglers but once they reached tt stage the female abandoned them and left the job to the male. Ever since then,the male didn't really bother about the female and never chased her around like he used to. I'm really hoping to be able to see the fry and witness for myself the wonders of apisto parenthood. To anyone who has their 2 cents worth or know's what's going on, Pls help me. Also,should i turn my eden 316 filter off and just leave the sponge filter running. The tank is a 2 ft tank and the driftwood where the eggs are is kind of near the filter intake. And should i change the water one more time before the eggs hatch?
BTW,the pair is a pair of agasizzi.
Sorry for the extremely long post but any help is very much appreciated
Cheers!

[Simon]

congrats again, actually u dun really need to reposition the driftwood for the male, he will find a way in.. i tend to think that the eggs did get fertilized but the frys prolly didnt survive maybe due to the lack of experiences.. the colour of a fertilized egg range depending on the food they consume... it shld be from a opaque white to red.. the responsibility of the mother will be to remove rotted eggs and she will constantly fan the eggs to provide fresh water to them...

just relax and let them do what they are doing, avoid staring at them too much as stress gets to them and they will feel threaten and eat the eggs/frys up..

[kubrich]

Thanx for the reply simon...one thing i noticed about the mother is that she doesn't fan the eggs at all...she just hovers around the area lashes at the male and chases him away. once in awhile she will hide where the eggs are and them peak her head out...so far she has eaten quite a few eggs.last night i counted about 30 plus and today left about 18,19 eggs. ever since the wrigglers never made it,she has a habit of eating the eggs. i dun really stare at them but the wood is tilted in a way tt i can see them from my desk as i am working on a school project now. i have kept their feeding to their usual regime in hopes that the female would not eat the eggs but dun seem to be working. i feed them only frozen blood worms and the eggs are a slight pinkish white color. and should i change the water tomorrow and turn the eden 316 off or just leave it?
thanx

[Simon]

u shld leave everything alone till they become wrigglers... dun be impatient, just leave them alone.... it will be fruitful one day