I have a 60 liter tank with one betta fish, two amano shrimps and one nirite snail. This is my first tank so I'm a beginner. When I brought the tank, I only placed gravel in it and no substrate, while I also brought living plants.
I know this was very stupid of me because no shit plants cannot grow in gravel. Anyways, I guess I should have thought one step ahead but unfortunatly I didn't and now my plants are decaying and turning transparent. My guess is that the issue is the lack of substrate. The decaying started for around 3 months ago and when it started I added some substrate under the gravel, but only in the areas where I have the plants planted. This made the water VERY cloudy and I had to take out my betta fish and do a 100% water change. After that, the plants started getting a little bit better. However, one or two months later they continued turning transparent, which I think happened because I didn't add enough substrate. The substrate is like 1 cm thick and I guess that isn't enough.
Right now I'm adding root tabs like once per month and I'm also using fertilizer. However, it doesn't seem like its helping.
I've had this tank for 6 months, it have been through the nitrogen cycle and is fully established. I really want to save my plants and make them healthy but I dont know how I should do it, without messing up the water or killing my fish, shrimps and snail. I don't know if it's a good idea repeating the whole process with having to take out my fish and doing a 100% water change after adding more substrate.
I could really use some advice right now... what should I do in this situation?