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Good to know. Thanks for the reassurance!

So here we are they are today-about 10 hours after their last feeding and they're all back to normal. It has to be spawning right? They just get so big it makes me nervous I'm doing something wrong. The only one this doesn't happen to is "Goldie" (in the second picture) who I think is the only male (but I'm not positive). Can their bellies get that big and that small from overeating?

There are seven danios and 4 honey gourami. 29 gallon.

PH 7 Nitrates 10ppm Nitrites 0 Ammonia 0 Hardness 150 Alkalinity 5 Temp 77 New to the hobby. Are these zebra danios carrying eggs or overfed? They seem to get like this every 2-3 days, and I've chalked it up to them spawning as their bellies usually go down again by the next day but I don't have much experience so I want to check and make sure I'm not giving too much. I give a pinch of either flake, mini bloodworms, or frozen brine once daily (typically) and do my best to abide by the 2 minute rule. Thanks! Christopher

Thank you both. I'll let it sit a longer before adding any fish, as I would really like to see plants the plants grow up a bit more. And try and clean as I go. Maybe get a couple Nerite snails. And maybe cut back on the easy green to every other day since there's so much dead plant matter still in the tank.

Hello, Thanks again for everyone's help with my KH questions. I removed the crushed coral and conditions have remained stable. PH around 7, KH around 2. About 70-80 percent of the plants I planted have survived and have transitioned/are transitioning. There are signs of new growth in my scarlet temple, pearlweed, monte carlo and a few of the crypts, and my various kinds of java fern are holding steady (some black spots on the windelov aside). There's also, what I believe to be diatom growing on my gravel, rocks, and some plants, as well as hair or thread algae on my driftwood and some of my plants. The tank has also read 0 for ammonia and nitrites and under 20ppm nitrates the past few days, so it seems like the tank is cycled. Hooray. My questions is... what do I do now? My goal is to have honey gourami and kuhli loaches. But I want to make sure the plants are established so the honey gourami's will be comfortable, and the kuhli loaches won't rip everything up/ be comfortable. And while I know the algae is a good sign, if it gets too out of control it will start blocking light for the plants/ be a complete pain to get rid of right? Particularly as I'm not planning on adding any specific algae eaters if I don't have to. The light is on 8 hours a day currently, in a part of my basement that gets very little natural light (Nicrew at 4/5 brightness for white light and 3/5 for blue). I'm dosing one squirt of Easy Green a day as suggested in Cory's planted tank cycling video. There are three sprigs of pothos coming out of the top. And I'm planning on replacing the dead hornwort/one good sprig of hornwort with wisteria in the near future. since most of the hornwort seems dead/ it make a mess. Other than that I have no plans to add or remove any more plant stock any time soon. So, what's the next step if I want to continue to grow my plants and keep the algae at bay? Do I cut back on the hours I'm running the light for (I've been running it so long for the monte carlo and scarlet temple). Should I start dosing the easy green once a week with three squirts as recommended on the bottle? Do I need to go ahead and add some fish? Or should I keep going to see if the tank stabilizes itself as the plants grow? Thanks!

Of course! Thanks so much.

Its not entirely empty. I've gradually been filling it with plants, attempting to run the fishless, planted cycle I found on aquarium coops youtube channel. Unfortunately I ordered plants at the worst possible time and they got caught up in the delays. Because of this I've been planting in stints and the health of some of the plants haven't always been great (the order from AC came in surprisingly well tho!). Cory's video didn't mention water changes and I knew plants consumed ammonia and nitrates eventually so I didn't think I needed to do them. But when my plants started melting heavily (including ones that came in in relatively good shape), I did more research and found that ammonia can burn plants if they're not set up to handle the load or weren't as hardy, which some weren't. Knowing I had dying plants due and substrate contributing to the ammonia in the tank, in addition to seeing the KH drop to about 0, I started doing water changes. I did about a 30 percent the first time kh dropped to 0. The next one was the first 70 percent, after I read about ammonia burning plants. The 50 was a few days after. And then the next 70 percent I did mostly because I got more plants in, including moss which I wanted to secure more easily to driftwood toward the bottom of the tank. I wouldn't be surprised at all of I'm over doing it.

This is hugely helpful and reassuring, thank you.

Thanks Will Billy and Dark G. I had a basic understanding, but the analogies definitely help. I guess what I don't understand is, my PH is fairly high out of the tap. I just measured it around a 7.6. But the KH is still only 4. GH was 9. How can the KH be so low with the PH being higher? The PH being so high explains why the numbers jumped up after the major water change. I guess to proceed I can only do very minor, and more regular water changes to not risk a crash? Or can crashes occur from other things too?

I can try leaving some water out and test it over a couple days to see what happens. I know that the stratum and driftwood can lower PH so I've mostly been attributing it to that. I did boil the driftwood for four hours and then soak it for a month before filling up the tank so it's not really leaching any tannins. Not chasing numbers makes a lot of sense. Being new I know I'm way too reactive. The PH crash thing just freaks me out. Thanks!

Hello, I'm looking for help understanding what super low KH means and how a PH crash works. I started my first tank (29G) two weeks ago. Initial readings for PH/ KH were about 7/4, but would drop to 6/0 over the course of a couple days without a water change (there's driftwood and fluval stratum in the tank). The GH would remain around 5. I'd like to keep Honey Gourami and Kuhli Loaches which I've read do well in softer water- but the PH crash thing worries me. It seems like any alternative to raising the KH also raises the PH and if PH gets too high, then the parameters aren't right for the gourami and kuhli loaches. I've read that KH is a buffer for PH but I don't completely understand what this means- particularly in relation to a PH crash. And does a higher KH mean a higher PH or is that only if you're taking active steps to raise one or the other? (such as a buffer). And is it possible to raise KH without raising PH? What causes a PH crash exactly? When my readings were showing KH at 0 and PH dropping I panic bought crushed coral and have since bought Alkaline Buffer (this was before I landed on Honey Gouramis and Kuhli Loaches as my fish of choice). I also got droplet kits for PH and KH/GH (I had been using a strip kit). I put a handful or so of crushed coral into my HOB. I have not yet opened the Alkaline Buffer. The handful of crushed coral kept my PH levels consistent at 7, KH at 2, and GH at 5 for about a week and through 2 water changes (one about 50% on about 70%). However, after another 70% water change and adding some plants yesterday, it read PH 7.2, KH 3, and GH 6, which is getting out of the range of the fish I'd like to keep. The levels are now back to 7/2/5. Am I messing around with the tank too much? Should I take out the crushed coral and see where the parameters land without any boosts? Or should I try the Alkaline Buffer? Do I need to give up on softer water fish to raise my KH and thus my PH? Any kind of guidance would be much appreciated. -Chris