Please help me decide if I can have live plants

[Nonreplicable]

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:

1. 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?
   
2. substrate - do I need to get the special soil to put under the sand?
   
3. 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:
   
4. what would be a suitable bottom dwelling fish to combine with my guppies?
   
5. 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.

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

I don't keep fish now but did keep them for many years. I always had live plants and never had a problem but the tanks were near a window.

Don't think you need soil, mine grew in gravel. I shouldn't worry about them growing too much, ours usually got eaten, especially in the cold water tank

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Didn't answer your question on the bottom feeders. I've always liked Kuhli Loaches.

[Nonreplicable]

Thanks Jilted. The tank is not near a window, it is in a shady corner of a fairly bright room. I do think it will need some light but perhaps the standard bulb is enough, I don't know. There is a lot of conflicting information out there.
I will look up Kuhli Loaches, thank you.

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

There is a lot of conflicting information unfortunately and I can't help you with where to look. I learnt pre-Internet. yes, I'm that old

[EauRouge]

65 litres is a bit on the small side for 2 shoals, I would just stick with the guppies. you could keep a few cherry shrimp in there for a bit of interest.

You could spend the money on extra lighting and co2 if you wanted but I never have- if you choose the right plants then you can have an amazing looking fully planted lo-tech tank with plants that are fine with low lighting.

Cryptocrynes are very easy to grow, most stay small and they don't take over quickly-perfect for a small tank. try getting a couple of different ones for variety.

If you have rock or wood then try growing some anubias or java fern on it. you just tie it on with cotton and it will soon grip on with its roots. and the shrimp will love java moss.

You do need some kind of fertiliser but you won't need to strip you tank down and start again. you can buy fert tablets that you can just poke in around your plants.

planted aquaria do not have to be expensive or complicated if you're in cambs then I can give you a lot of plants for free.

have you checked your tap water nitrAte? it can be quite high in some areas. 40ppm is the highest you would want it with fish in there but you can keep it down with regular water changes.

on phone so sorry for typos!

[Nonreplicable]

Thanks very much for the offer Eau, I am in London so can't take you up on it.

This is very helpful on the plants, I will look for the ones you mention.

Re the water - it comes out of the tap with 40ppm of nitrates, that's why I figure I need some extra help to bring it down so I bought Nitrates minus. Have not tested it yet. Any other ideas very welcome.

On the bottom dwellers, I really liked the look of the bristlenoses. Could I get a couple of those, do you think? Or does it need to be more, in which case you are correct, I do not have enough space.

[EauRouge]

Bristlenoses are territorial so they shouldn't be kept in numbers unless you have a large tank. I think 65 l is a bit small for a bristlenose but I think there are a couple of smaller plec species that might fit.

If you have high nitrate then it's probably better to understock though because it will prevent a lot of problems in the longterm. what you could do is get the guppies for now and see how it goes.

too bad you're not near me, I've got tons of spare crypts.

[Nonreplicable]

That makes sense, I will try and get the guppies and the plants right first and will take it from there. Thank you for your help.

[Nonreplicable]

Hi Eau (and others), could I get a little more help please. I am baffled.

I am on day 17 of the fishless cycle and appear to be done! I had ammonia down to 0 on day 7, nitrites started coming down yesterday and are measuring 0ppm today.

Strangely my nitrAtes are also coming down, rather than rising. I have about 40ppm in my tap water and I had about the same in the tank a week ago. Yesterday and today I measure 10-15ppm in the tank. How is this possible? I have added nothing other than Aquasafe to the water and thus only claims to eliminate Chlorine. I have no live plants yet and no other living creatures.

Any idea what might be going on? More importantly, this makes me not want to change any of the water as I would only be increasing nitrate content.

Thank you in advance for your help.

[EauRouge]

Hmm, very odd. can you do another test to make sure?

[Nonreplicable]

I just tested again. Amonia and nitrite are 0ppm.
Nitrates I get 5ppm in the tank but 40ppm straight from the tap!
Could it be algae growing in the tank that is eating up the nitrates? I don't see any but the water is a little cloudy.
I was going to go and get my guppies and shrimp on Friday so I was planning to change some of the water today but this would bring the nitrates back up I guess. What to do?

[EauRouge]

The algae wouldn't br using up that amount of nitrate. could be that you're getting a false reading straight out of the tap maybe. I would let a glass sit for 24 hrs and then test it.

[Nonreplicable]

Eau, I need help please!

I went to the shop on Friday night and got six male guppies, two shrimp and two nerite snails. I put them in the tank and they were all happily exploring and feeding. The shrimps disappeared yesterday but the guppies were still happily swimming. This morning I could only see five guppies. I have just found one guppy dead and, having searched the tank found both shrimp dead too. The missing guppy is still missing so I suspect this has died too. The snails are inside their shells and not moving so I doubt they are alive. The other four fish look perfectly fine.
Water is testing ph 7.5, amonia and nitrite 0 and nitrates about 10ppm.
I have two very upset children.
Any ideas? I am likely to lose all the fish, right? It sounds like there must be something wrong with the water??

[EauRouge]

oh no

there doesn't seem to be anything wrong from your readings. sometimes the shock of different water parameters can shock and weken a fish- how long did you spend acclimatising them? is the tank heated?

shrimp are quite sensitive to water quality and over breeding means that guppies are fairly delicate now.

it could be that something else is in the water- trace minerals, heavy metals maybe. which water conditioner are you using?

[Nonreplicable]

I am using Aqua Safe.
I did a 40% water change which made the missing guppy reappear, miraculously still alive. So I now have 5 guppies at least, not sure for how long.
I have a Brita filter on my tap so I used water from that for the water change just on the off chance that it helps somehow. I think it only softens the water though and I am not sure I should be lowering the ph as the guppies are supposed to like it high.
Anyway, fish perked up a little after the water change. I will change another 40% tomorrow I think, although I am not sure which water to use.

Could there be poisonous chemicals leaking from the plastic plants and decorations? I bought them from Seapets and washed them.
I have no other ideas.
I hope this five survive, my youngest daughter was devastated today :(

[Nonreplicable]

Sorry, forgot to answer your other questions. I floated the bags in the water for about an hour then added some of the tank water into the bags over the course of another hour then moved them into the tank and chucked the bag water away.
The tank is heated at 23 c.