🙂 yes, I agree, they are incredible. The males will most often stick to the cave as glue, and you can even lift it up with the male staying inside it. I will not recomend that though, – the male will stay as long as he can, – but might suddenly get scared and jump, or get stressed. But its amazing how ‘faithful’ he is.
If you dont get the small fry out this time, – I would still keep feeding if I were you, – you can never tell. Sometimes adult fish dont eat the fry, even they gobbel up moina 🙂 … or the fry is just amazingly good at hiding. I would not be surprised if you had two or three little parvulus appearing in two months time 🙂 ..
When you place the cave, it is an advantage to test it before if you have a good look into it, – but be careful not to lift only one end of it up, as the bubblenest then could slide out. I often place the whole cave on something so that I have a good look in it.
I like the way you describe how he went for the bamboo, maybe thats worth while trying. Mine take mostly the clay cat-fish caves or the film cannister, – but I had a pair of linkeis using the same kind of flower pot as in your tank. They didnt mind.