New Plants

As I'm going to be stuck with just a planted tank for a while, I have treated myself to a few new plants
Hairgrass (Eleocharis parvula)
Twistd vallis (Vallisneria Tortifolia)
Amazon Sword

I already have Java fern and some java moss thanks to Naughtymoose, as well as an anubia nan and a little cryptocoryne

I bought the new plants from Ebay and I want to avoid any snail problems.
I shall be looking at them VERY carefully, making sure I use my reading glasses!

However, would it be a good idea to use the odimor treatment supplied to me by Maidenhead to treat my dying fish?

The bottle says invertebrates will not tolerate the medicine which contains Copper  sulphate pentahydrate and malachite green oxalate.

I am only intending a one off treatment and to leave the plants in the water for 15-30 mins and then rinsing off well.  In separate container rather than my tank.

My experience with the first lot of fish has left me apprehensive to say the least.  Murphy's law of what can go wrong WILL go wrong for me!!

Any views please.

Oh lordy.
See what can go wrong will!!

I expect the swords will die anyway Richard 

OK, no medicines then, hope for the best with the hairgrass and fish out the swords when they die!!

And there was me thinking I had researched it all very carefully before I wasted any more money 

I had to completely replace my first tank after I had planted it. And consequently I had no snails until I introduced them with subsequent plant purchases. So I think you should be OK just planting your new purchases.

To look after your plants I would recommend removing any air stones and keeping the surface agitation to a minimum. CO2 'dissolves' out of the water, and oxygen in, at the surface of the water. Therefore as you don't have any livestock to generate CO2 for your plants, you want to minimise its loss. To the same end it would be a good idea to keep doing water changes, as this introduces low levels of CO2 into the water. Try to be as gentle as possible when pouring the new water in. Minimising surface area is your current objective!

I think it would also be a good idea to fertilise the tank / plants. Don't forget that you will also need a source of nitrogen for them. But if you are continuing to feed your bacteria, that should be OK.

And I think it would also help if you had your lights on a 'siesta'. Whether this helps or not is pretty controversial, but it is a method that I use and personally think is very successful. The theory is that gases dissolve from high to low concentrations. Plants produce oxygen in the light and CO2 in the dark. After about 4 hours of light, the plants have produced so much oxygen that the concentration around the leaves slows down further production. So if you turn the lights off, the plants then use up the oxygen and so when the lights come back on they can produce more oxygen than they otherwise would have.

A lot of tropical aquatic plants come from rivers and streams that are overshadowed by trees etc. So in the middle of the day, the aquatic plants are actually in shadow. So supporters of the 'siesta' regime point to this as being the natural environment for these plants.

The other thing that will affect this is the water flow. If there is good flow, the oxygen will be moved away from the plants and therefore won't become sufficiently concentrated to slow down further growth.

With a bit of TLC, your planted tank will look even better when you are ready to introduce fish again. But it can be difficult to completely reverse everything you've learned for fish, to promote plant growth.

My understanding of why Amazon swords fail is because they like a lot of nitrogen, and because they are quite big, larger tanks can accommodate bigger, messier and a lot more fish. Mine visibly fail and thrive depending on my stocking levels. And when I removed one, the root system was huge - significantly larger than the leaf system. It was very disruptive to my tank!

If you keep on top of removing dead / dying leaves, any snails that do get into your tank will die pretty quickly.

Thank you all.

I don't have the lights on all day, they are switched on at dusk and kept on for around 6-7 hours. Obviously as the days become longer the use of the lights will reduce?

I have no major algae problem, just a little bit growing on a rough cast ornament. The water and glass is very clear.

I do have an airstone going but it is barely producing bubbles on the surface.  I'll re-direct it when I replant the tank next week.

As for the overpowered filter, I put that on a homemade spray bar as it helped with the ridiculous water reduction in the filter compartment which was making it run dry. 
I can direct that so that the flow is still in the water without having bubbles.  It's only bobbing the pretend fish at the moment anyway!

I do use a liquid fertiliser at the moment.

I have contacted the Ebay company and asked them to exchange the Sword for something a little less daunting so hopefully the will get the message before they despatch.

Oh what absorbing hobby !! You wait until I next get that grandson in my clutches 

The very kind Ebay supplier has agreed to swap the sword for some java moss so that's OK.
I currently have gravel but will be re-doing the tank shortly and using Tetra substrate, under the re-applied gravel.

(Now this is where I find out I'm doing that wrong too  )

I swear I shall get the hang of all this at some stage. All a learning curve at the moment.

I've been quietly looking at fish again as well as future shrimp, just for future reference you understand, and I did drop hints into a recent conversation with the other half but he is decidedly offish about it all and insists he really really really loves the planted tank!!