Mine seem to be far, far less attentitve towards the fry after they've been free swimming for 3-4 days, the rest of the tankmates tend to start making munching runs, and having a nibble.
If i want to make sure they survive, i remove at about that point. I suppose in the wild, theres much more space available so fry can hide very easily.. not a facility you can easy copy in a living room tank
If i do keep some, i house them in a 30L tank, and feed with liquifry for slightly less than a week, and then start introducing brine shrimp, and start reducing the liquifry. depending how there looking, after maybe 3 weeks start introducing finely crushed flake, or commercial fry food, and start removing the brine shrimp.. after that its simply increasing the size, and amount of flake (Ground cichlid pellets don't go a miss either) along with the size of the fish.
To get them breeding.. do you have a selection of flat stones/rocks?? id recommend slate.. peices at least the size the size of the acara, to about 2x their size. Also, quite a fine, but deep substrate will help. they like to dig pits to sheperd the fry into when they hatch, and when they move them around (digging, and cleaning large flat stones is a very encouraging sign that they are about to spawn). Other than that make sure they have well oxygenated water, and are fed good food. If they are happy, and they feel there is space to support fry (the oxygen + food supply, and clean water), then you will have no problem breeding them at all.
