B. pallifina breeding behavior?

[Fallen_Leaves16]

I originally had obtained a pair of B. pallifina from JDAquatics some months back, and they successfully spawned within a month or so. Unfortunately, the male swallowed the eggs soon after and died via an unfortunate acrobatic leap from his tank in the middle of the night. The female stopped eating for around a week after this, but later resumed its normal habits. I took a gamble and recently got another male in hopes of successfully spawning the species; the female displayed breeding stripes around ~3 days after introduction and started bulking up for eggs; the male seemed to have accepted the female, as no aggression was noted and the two were often found next to each other. The female has now developed a heavily rounded body and I observed her nudging the male, displaying her belly/side, and attempting to embrace him. However, the male refuses and tries to bite her side while shoving her away; it only seems to happen when she makes breeding advances and no other time does he display aggression in any sort, as the female and male still lie next to each other on an anubias leaf relatively frequently. I haven't noticed the same thing happening with my first pair, but they were fairly secretive, so I might've missed it. Anyone know why the male keeps doing this? Should I separate the two and try introducing them again some other time?

Tank is a 75G community with apistos, a few cories, a few plecos, and a few misc. community fish; none of the inhabitants bother the bettas and the bettas seem much more appreciative of the larger tank as compared to when I had them in a 20G long.

 

[Fallen_Leaves16]

Update: Pair actually spawned last night, only I didn't realize it. Spawns seem to occur right after lights-out. I'm assuming the male's behavior towards the female was sort of a "not here, not now" kind of message. The female is now much skinnier and has resumed pale coloration for the most part (though she still retained the thick lateral "breeding band"; if this spawn is anything like the last one it'll go away in a few days). Male has taken up position under a rather large Anubias barteri leaf and is now in post-spawn coloration (though not very visible in photos). Seems as though he has a lot of eggs; fingers crossed for a successful batch of fry in a couple weeks.

Should I try to separate the eggs from the father? Kinda nervous, as the male in particular seems to stress out pretty easily and I don't think he's an experienced parent. I have read that unimaculata eggs are very fragile and don't take well to separate incubation (supposedly they disintegrate), but I have also heard of a successful artificial incubation (albeit with a relatively high death toll).

 

[fishorama]

Oh, I don't have any ideas to help but I'd love to learn about these bettas & breeding them.

Congrats! I hope you know a community tank is not ideal & if you can move the eggs to a small tank, well, I would...Next time, in a month or so, try moving the pair to a smaller "spawning" tank before they breed. Try feeding them some extra protein rich or better, live foods to get them ready. The males, if like other bettas, will care for the eggs & youngest fry...but then it's all on you when they tire of parent stuff. There's a learning curve for many fish being new parents. It can take a few batches of eggs for them to get the right idea. Don't give up!