I am a complete novice to fish keeping and I need some help please, there seems to be some very helpful and knowledgeable people here.
I have been reading up and hopefully have not gone too far wrong yet.
I have a 65l tank and I am currently on day 14 of my fishless cycle. I got Amonia down to zero, nitrites still high and my water comes out of the tap with nitrates at 40ppm already. I have very hard water with ph 7.5.
I plan to get 5-6 male guppies and something that gets on with them for the bottom.
At the moment I have sand, a few toys and a few plastic plants. I figure it would be nicer for the fish to have live plants plus it should help bring the nitrates down a little. Then I read up on planted aquariums and feel rather confused.
So, I have a few questions and would really appreciate some help:
- light - my tank came with a standard fluorescent bulb. Most websites claim this is grossly inadequate for plants and needs to be changed. Is this correct and what do I need?
- substrate - do I need to get the special soil to put under the sand?
- CO2 - do I need extra gadgetry for that too?
I quite like the look of the ready plant set for 60l tank which Seapets sell so was planning to get that one.
Two more questions, not plant related:
- what would be a suitable bottom dwelling fish to combine with my guppies?
- what is the best way to bring nitrates down? I have ordered Nitrates minus solution but have not tried it yet as do not want to mess with the cycle at this stage.
I appreciate that this is a lot of questions in one go. Any help appreciated.