I am thinking of getting another, bigger, fish tank.. help stocking?
 

It will probably be soil substrate with sand and maybe a few pebbles if that sounds ok?
And then. Lots of plants, of course!
Preferably fairly low maintenance ones.
I was thinking about getting a 72 litre tank, that's about as big a tank as I can fit on my desk. =')

I'm thinking of moving the current inhabitants of my 30 litre tank into it. (a betta, 4 cardinals & two unknown tetra) Adding a few more cardinals.. Some ottos.. is there room for much else, and if so any suggestions? =)

And then use the smaller tank for 1 or 2 dwarf puffers and some bumblebee gobies? & I'm not sure whether that's too small for ottos. Maybe a few ghost shrimp?

For the smaller tank I'd love some suggestions of low light plants, I've currently got a couple of swords which are doing ok.. and an anubias barteri (I think).
And then the other tank I will make sure I get one with a decent light! But since cardinals are not too fond of the light some plants with big shady leaves might be a good idea?

Also. The pH of the water in my current fish tank is about 8. (liquid test kit). ammonia, nitrite & nitrate are zero.

cardinals will struggle at your ph - they prefer a ph of 6 or lower and very soft water. high ph will cause physical stress making them more susceptible to disease

other low light plants include crypts, java fern, java moss

I know. I'm going to try and start getting soft water from the fish shop (which should therefore have a lower pH I think?) but when I first got the tank I had problems with cycling for several months and so that wasn't really an option because of the large number and volume of water changes.


^ ^ Thank you.

with your pH you should try African cichlids?

Aren't they kind of expensive and difficult to keep? =S
I've only been keeping fish for 6 months or something.