I would like to add something.
You asked in the first post why the male is not staying with the cave all the time ?
I think that that really is because he is loosing ‘interest’ in the eggs because it is not a successfull spawning as I mentioned above. Its quite typical behaviour of the male to then not stay with the eggs.
The eggs which stick to the ceiling will make him stay underneath these totally uninterrupted, but as they are not as they ‘should’ be according to his instinct he is wandering off and not really certain what to do with the eggs .. untill they disappear and he will start another nest and another spawning 🙂
When the eggs are ‘normal’ and staying in the nest, most males are extremely stabile and wont leave the cave at all.