Rough love...

Well what a frustrating few weeks. My common female layed a batch of eggs with my male about a month ago that disappeared overnight... no ideas why.
Then...
My female albino is gravid and buldging and my male albino from my profile pic has been guarding the breeding log and fanning. Severel times I've seen her go in and then he seems to push into the log to trap her but she escapes. Sooo frustrating to watch. Then, this morning, I woke up and could see a shape in the end of the breeding log so I assumed she'd got in, however, a few hours later I saw her bakc on the outside of the log and yet the shape was still in with the male. Upon closer inspection the shape revealed itself to be my small female longfin. I didn't even realise she was of breeding age and was pretty surprised.
Several hours late though and she was still in the same spot not moving and I was a bit worried so made the call to investigate fearing the worst. SUre enough she's crushed and stuck in the end of the log and has drowned.
So not a good outcome at all. The log is just the common type you buy from pet stores and it's had severel batches layed in it last year without worry, but now i'm worried that it might be too small... ideas?
P.S sorry for the long post.

I recommend getting some medium size square breeding slates. More natural for bn to spawn in and ive never had a female get trapped.

Yeah I took the ceramic breeding log out and now he's moved into a hollowed out bit of drift wood, but still keeps chasing the other females out... so frustrating

the standard cave measurements i use to make mine are 5cms wide and 2.5cms tall and 15-18cms long.

Thanks Doug.

Have you ever had a male that just won't let a female into a cave?

yep, it happens when the male is just not ready to breed. it seems to happen with the more committed parents as they know it will be a few weeks without food etc.