Don't think about adding more fish until the members here say they are quite sure you're fully cycled. You need to be "Iron Man" and just keep on keeping on! You've made it through a week, great! Now just keep it up for a couple more weeks and then figure out where you are. A fish-in cycle is about over when you can measure true zero for both ammonia and nitrite(NO2) for two days in a row with no water changes having been performed. When that happens, its good to "wait out the week" (ie. give it sitll some more time until you can get to a weekend for adding a few (2 or 3, no more) new fish.
Plants that are red often need more light and are trickier to grow (hence often difficult for beginners) so don't feel bad if you can't pull it through. On the other hand, some of them will just lose all their leaves at the beginning (from the shock) and if you leave the crown and roots in the substrate it will eventually regenerate new leaves. This has happened recently for me with a red cryp. But you do need to do the work of manually removing dying leaves as soon as you know they won't make it. They are breaking down and adding to the load in your tank, making the cycling less clear-cut. Don't forget that all the water changes you are doing for the fish-in situation mean you are promptly removing any plant nutrients you have put in, so you are starving the plants unless you recharge the ferts, along with recharging the ammonia after these water changes. Some root-oriented plants like amazon swords seem to appreciate plant tabs being put in the gravel under their roots, especially in a new tank situation. If you are not dosing CO2 in any way you might want to consider Seachem Excel or EasyCarb, which are liquid carbons that can be used in low-light (less than 2 watts per gallon of lighting) situations.
~~waterdrop~~
