spawning catfish

This morning serpae tetras in one tank and cory catfish in the other, were spawning. I noticed yesterday that the cories looked a bit more active than normal- kind of dashing around the tank together, then stopping short with fins held wide quivering excitement- but I didn't think about it. Today when I fed them I saw one female had her pelvic fins pinched together. She was carrying eggs! There was a flurry of activity among them in a bunch of plants, and when she came out again the fins were empty. But a few minutes later I saw the group of cories rushing around together, mouthing each other and following close, and then she appeared to have two or three eggs in the "belly basket" again. You can barely see one here.

I saw her cleaning the underside of windelov leaves, and go through the motion of sticking an egg on them, but later could not find an egg in that spot. However there are definitely at least two placed on the subwassertang-

Not sure how well they got fertilized- I only have one male now. Past weekend I euthanized the one that had a bent tail. I found it lying on its side, patches of fungus and a lump on the side of head. Labored breathing, rolled upside down when it tried to swim. Looked really bad. It did not move away when I nudged it with tweezers, very weak. Symptoms reminded me of the serpae tetra that died the moment I separated it into a QT container. This one I folded into a paper towel and put my foot on it. Then took a shovel to the backyard, all in the space of a few minutes. I felt horrid. 

The one male I have now is to the left in this pic- and if you look close can see the egg under the female, in her fins just to the right of the food wafer: