New to the forum

Welcome @JGBeeslaar !
Exciting

If you haven’t bought the equipment yet you could consider a 60ish liter (2 foot tank) instead or perhaps a 45L. The extra volume will help a great deal to keep your water clean and parameters stable, which is very important for shrimp.

Make sure the tank is properly cycled before adding the shrimp, they really don’t do well with even the minutest ammonia or nitrite spike. You can find info on the Nitrogen cycle under Beginner’s section, no 1 thing to understand when new to fish keeping (obviously ignore if you’re not actually new to fish keeping )

To keep shrimp and neon tetra together you’ll need plenty of live plant cover for the shrimplets to hide in, otherwise they’ll get eaten. Neon tetra school of at least 6, and they prefer water on the slightly cooler side apparently about 22-24C. Their cousins cardinal tetras prefer warmer water.

Do you know what kind of shrimp you’d like to keep? I’d suggest neocaridena eg cherry shrimp as a start. Some of the others can be real tricky and have special requirements.

 

3 foot plus for mollies / platties would be my honest suggestion. They’re active, get a bit bigger than some people realise, and breed like rabbits so one can easily run out of space soon.

Start with 1 male 3 females perhaps.

Again, if your purpose is to breed them, plenty of plant cover as the adults (even the mother) eat newborn fry. Must say there is not such a big market for them precisely because they are so easy to breed. I’ve given away plenty for free.

Where in SA are you?

 

Cool. Just note that in keeping those 3 colour variants together they will interbreed and in a few generations most of them might be brown... I would suggest separate tanks for separate lines.

 

Awesome, following along. Shout if you have further questions eg around plants or equipment, there are tons of forum members who are very generous in sharing. Not sure what your prior experience is. We like pics!!

 

Dude you don’t need CO2 to keep a planted tank. It’s not as hard as some people make it out to be. Unless you want to win international aquascaping competitions.
Choose your substrate (can bounce off ideas) and the level of maintenance you are prepared to do then trust me, you can grow plants fairly easily as long as you choose plants that suit those conditions. You have to be ruthless- very much important. If you want an easy planted tank, you HAVE to choose easy category plants. It’s that simple, that’s 90% of the secret. And folks can help guide you. If you get into it a bit more at a later stage (or not) you can explore more (or not).

 

Great that’s an easy low maintenance plant. Other suggestions (I’m giving you more or less fool proof easy suggestions to get going with and you’ll probably have success with, which is key to staying involved). However some plants just do better in certain tanks, little logic behind it so don’t beat yourself up if one or two don’t work
- anubias (NB for shady spots, they don’t love high light). Epiphyte plant.
- cryptocorynes
- pearl weed. Stem plant that will probably grow in a toilet
- lmnofilla sessiliflora as long as it gets good light. Fast growing stem plant.
- ludwigia repens
- bolbitis heudelotti works great for me but depending on your water it might not for you. Epiphyte plant.
- if you’re prepared to drop some money also look at bucephelandra species. Epiphyte plant
- Susswassertang for low flow, even low to basically no light areas- very useful and great shrimp cover.
- testing kits: https://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/threads/water-testing-kits-product-reviews.33041/#post-412544 we’re also hearing great things about the aquarium test strips from Aquarium Co-op ito reliably

The above would be good starter plants (not a full list) even when you have the most basic of substrates eg pool filter sand (cheap cheap).

Ito fertilizer, my juice of preference is Seachem Flourish ADVANCE which I dont necessary use on an ongoing basis (stingy) but as needed. Starting the tank that’s going to help you a lot though. Micronutrients and phytohormones only.

Once again, a 60cm tank will give you a lot more options even for plants, otherwise some might look odd in a small tank.

 

You’re just been the latest top poster while everyone’ still chillxing for the weekend. Keep it coming, means nothing