Troublesome Start Up - Plants Now Decying

[EJDennahy]

Hi All,

I wonder if you can all help.

So - long story short.

I own a Fluval Edge 46L Tank with stock filter and lighting. Left on 12 hours and then set to night mode for 12 hours.

- Started two weeks ago
- After 3 day nitrogen cycle I added an angel fish, shrimp and pleco
- 3 days in my Angel Fish died.
- I then added driftwood to make my pleco happy
- My water went tea colour so I added extra carbon media to my filter
- I had a nitrite spike for 7 days, did water changes every other day and added additional Aqua Clear for nitrite, nitrates and ammonia to the filter.
- 2 days later my Shrimp passes away
- 5 days later I've now corrected the nitrite but now have 0.6 reading of ammonia, which I now have to fix and was told to remove the aqua clear from my filter.

What I have noticed in my plants are now decaying (the two that are darker green), the driftwood also released some gel looking paste that's covered it and the plants near it, the leaf colours are now turning white and the leaves are stripping.

What I would like help on is - why are my plants potentially doing this? and will that be adding to my ammonia problem?

N.B. I haven't put these plants in substrate, is this potentially the biggest reason for the rot?c

Thank you.

My tank.

 

[Mebbid]

Firstly, the pleco and angel are far too large of a fish to fit in a tank that small. Picking that particular tank really limits you on the number of fish that you can fit in it, particularly due to the fact that it's tall for it's footprint.

Some fish that will work well in this tank:

Platies
Guppies
Betta
Sparkling Gourami
Oto Cats
Neon Tetras

Both angels and plecos need 30g+


Cycling: Take a look at this link
I just learned about cycling but I already have fish. What now?! - Aquarium Advice